‎683 thousand immigrants from Lebanon mainly in the US & KSA

The report on migration, displacement and development published jointly by ESCWA and the ‎International Organization for Migration (IOM) indicates that the Arab region is among the top ‎in the terms of the highest and fastest growth of immigration, recording in 2013 over 30 million ‎emigrants to the area, which represent nearly 8.24% of the Arab region’s total population. On the ‎other hand, the report estimated that the total number of migration from the Arab countries in the ‎same year at more than 21 million people, equivalent to 5.9% of its overall population, while ‎noting that 57.3% of those are males against 42.7% females. The report also pointed out to a rise ‎in the number of Syrian refugees which in 2015 totaled some 3.9 million in 2015, of whom one ‎million and 100 thousand refugees in Lebanon only, thus ranking Lebanon second among world ‎host states, with the highest rate of 257 refugees for every 1000 Lebanese citizens, thus lifting ‎the percentage rate of migrants in Lebanon to 26% of the population including the displaced ‎Syrian nationals registered with the UNHCR in Lebanon. ‎

As for the destination countries of Lebanese migrants, the report corrected the exaggerated ‎figures concerning in the Arab Gulf countries, and providing accurate figures for the period 1990 ‎to 2013. Accordingly, some 500 thousand migrants‏ ‏were recoded in 1990 with the largest ‎number (99401 persons) concentrated in the United States, followed by Saudi Arabia (99241 ‎persons), then Australia, Canada and Germany. The total figure rose in 2013 to 683 thousand, of ‎whom 124 thousand were from the age group of 15 – 24 years. However, in 2013, there was a ‎significant shift in the destination countries, with the US maintaining the first place (with 126 ‎thousand Lebanese migrants), while Saudi Arabia witnessed a fall to 57 thousand persons, the ‎report said. On the other hand, migration into Lebanon from the Arab countries reached some ‎‎826 thousand migrants in 2013, bringing the country to the eighth position among the ten top ‎destination countries for Arab migrants. (Al Akhbar, January 15, 2016)‎