Please note: The data from this map comes from Wikipedia and was believed accurate as of 29 August 2015. As this situation is rapidly evolving the numbers here may now be somewhat out-of-date.
The map above shows the number of Syrian refugees per capita or to put it another the number of Syrian refugees relative to the country’s population. As anyone following the crisis will quickly notice, there has been a widely varying response from different countries.
Notable ungenerous countries include:
- Saudi Arabia – 0
- Qatar – 0
- United Arab Emirates – 0
- Kuwait – 0
- Bahrain – 0
It’s a little surprising that the region’s richest countries have collectively offered a grand total of zero places to Syrian refugees according to Amnesty International.
Although this is not entirely fair or accurate since most of the gulf-state governments are not defining Syrians who enter their country as refugees. For example, Abdullah Al Hajiri, Kuwait’s acting head of the General Directorate for Residency Affairs has said that: “Regarding the Syrian nationals who have entered Kuwait through visit visas, but were not able to leave on time, we will grant them long-time visas within the confines of the law.”
Similarly, Saudi Arabia says criticism of Syria refugee response ‘false and misleading.’ And at the very least the countries are providing some humanitarian aid to refugees living in other countries.
The number of people taken in from Syria according to each government’s own figures is as follows:
- Kuwait – 120,000
- Saudi Arabia – up to 100,000
- Bahrain – 5,000
- Qatar – 42
- UAE – no data
Whether or not you think this is enough is up to you to decide, but do have a look at the amount of aid given at the bottom of this article.
As for the number of refugees estimated to have been taken in by other countries, the numbers are:
- Turkey – over 2 million
- Jordan – 1.4 million
- Lebanon – 1.2 million
- Iraq – 250,000
- Egypt – 133,000
- Germany – 105,000 (but have pledged spaces for up to 800,000)
- Greece – 88,000
- Sweden – 40,000+
- Algeria – 25,000
- Austria – 18,000+
- Armenia – 17,000+
- United Kingdom – 5,000
- Libya – 5,000
- Italy – 4,600
- Bulgaria – 4,500+
- Australia – 4,500
- Canada – 2,374
- Brazil – 2,077
- United States – 1,500
So while Turkey has taken in the largest total number of refugees, Lebanon and Jordan have taken in the largest number per capita at 0.27 and 0.21 repetitively, which means their population including refugees have each swelled by over 20%!
While Europe is slowly opening its borders to refugees, it’s really some, although by no means all, of Syria’s neighbours who are doing the real heavy lifting. And you know the situation is bad when 250,000 have left Syria to go to Iraq.
Finally, looking at estimated aid given by country, here are the 10 most generous donors (amount given in USD):
- European Union – $4,401,930,000
- United States – $4,339,988,662
- United Kingdom – $1,426,362,355
- Kuwait – $1,183,995,897
- Germany – $981,512,548
- Saudi Arabia – $599,750,081
- UAE – $556,356,485
- Canada – $529,022,876
- Japan – $480,373,873
- Norway – $266,439,702
So in terms of money given Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all make it on to the top 10, with Qatar at number 11.
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