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Asylum-Seeker Figures
© UNHCR/B.Szandelszky
Refugees are people who have fled their homes and crossed an international border to escape persecution or conflict. Asylum-seekers are people who have made a claim to be recognized as refugees and are waiting for that claim to be accepted or rejected.
At the beginning of 2009, there were some 838,000 asylum-seekers of concern to the UN refugee agency. They are found around the globe. UNHCR advocates for governments to adopt fair and efficient procedures to determine if an individual asylum-seeker is a refugee, recognizing how difficult it is in many cases to document persecution.