United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the context of "Forced migration"

A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as a result of who they are, what they believe in or say, or because of armed conflict, violence or serious public disorder." Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by a contracting state or by the UNHCR if they formally make a claim for asylum.

Internally Displaced People (IDPs) are often called refugees, but they are distinguished from refugees because they have not crossed an international border, although their reasons for leaving their home may be the same as those of refugees.

In international law, a stateless person is someone who is "not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law". Some stateless people are also refugees. However, not all refugees are stateless, and many people who are stateless have never crossed an international border. At the end of 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees published an estimation of 4.4 million people worldwide as either stateless or of undetermined nationality, 90,800 (+2%) more than at the end of 2021. However, the data itself is not complete because UNHCR does not have data from many countries, such as from at least 22 countries where mass statelessness exists. The data also does not include de facto stateless people who have no legal identification to prove their nationality or legal existence. According to the World Bank, at least 850 million fit that category.

The status of a person who might be stateless ultimately depends on the viewpoint of the state with respect to the individual or a group of people. In some cases, the state makes its view clear and explicit; in others, its viewpoint is harder to discern. In those cases, one may need to rely on prima facie evidence of the view of the state, which in turn may give rise to a presumption of statelessness.

Dakhla refugee camp (Arabic: مخيم الداخلة) is a Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf province in southwestern Algeria. The settlement is also known as Garet Djebilet (also written Gâra Djebilet). It is located 134 kilometres (83 mi) southeast of Tindouf near the Mauritanian border, and is the location of an iron mine. As of 2003, the camp has a population of about 38,180 Sahrawi refugees, according to UNHCR statistics. It is named after the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara.

The Moroccan Western Sahara Wall or the Berm, also called the Moroccan sand wall (Arabic: الجدار الرملي, romanized: al-jidār ar-ramliyya, lit. 'sand wall'), is an approximately 2,700 km-long (1,700 mi) berm running south to north through Western Sahara and the southwestern portion of Morocco. It separates the Moroccan-occupied areas (the Southern Provinces) on the west from the Polisario-controlled areas (Free Zone, nominally Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) on the east. The main function of the barriers is to prevent a Sahrawi state, keeping independence-seekers away from the region's natural resources, located in the Moroccan-occupied part of the territory.

According to maps from the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in many places the wall extends several kilometers into internationally recognized Mauritanian territory.

Afghans in Pakistan are migrants from Afghanistan—some of whom are registered in Pakistan as refugees and asylum seekers. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) provides limited protection to them. Many of them were born and raised in Pakistan during the last four decades. Additionally, there are also Special Immigrant Visa applicants awaiting to immigrate to the United States.

The Pakistani government began admitting Afghans after the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979; by the end of 2001, there were over four million of them on the Pakistani side. While some have returned to Afghanistan many decided to stay in Pakistan.

Climate migration is a subset of climate-related mobility that refers to movement driven by the impact of sudden or gradual climate-exacerbated disasters, such as "abnormally heavy rainfalls, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones". Gradual shifts in the environment tend to impact more people than sudden disasters. The majority of climate migrants move internally within their own countries, though a smaller number of climate-displaced people also move across national borders.

Climate change gives rise to migration on a large, global scale. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that an average of 20 million people are forcibly displaced to other areas in countries all over the world by weather-related events every year. Climate-related disasters disproportionately affect marginalized populations, who are often facing other structural challenges in climate-vulnerable regions and countries. The 2021 White House Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration underscored the multifaceted impacts of climate change and climate-related migration, ranging from destabilizing vulnerable and marginalized communities, exacerbating resource scarcity, to igniting political tension.

Forced displacement (also forced migration or forced relocation) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines "forced displacement" as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations".

A forcibly displaced person may also be referred to as a "forced migrant", a "displaced person" (DP), or, if displaced within the home country, an "internally displaced person" (IDP). While some displaced persons may be considered refugees, the latter term specifically refers to such displaced persons who are receiving legally defined protection and are recognized as such by their country of residence and/or international organizations.

Afghans in Iran are citizens of Afghanistan who are temporarily residing in Iran as refugees or asylum seekers. They form the largest percent of the Afghan diaspora. The first wave of Afghans crossed into Iran after the start of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979.

According to Afghanistan's Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there were approximately three million Afghan citizens in Iran as of January 2023, most of whom were born and raised in Iran during the last four decades. They are under the care and protection of the UNHCR, and are provided time-limited legal status by Iran's Bureau of Aliens and Foreign Immigrant Affairs, without a path to obtain permanent residency. There are also about 600,000 Afghan tourists, travelers, merchants, exchanged students, regular or irregular migrant workers, and others. According to Hassan Kazemi Qomi, half of Iran's foreign investors are Afghans.