216 Ralf E. UlRich
region and the sample countries we have chosen.^4 A total of 18 million
persons from MENA countries live abroad, 7.1 million of whom live in other
MENA countries, 7.4 million in the EU and 3.3 million in other countries
outside these two regions. The number of emigrants from EU countries is
considerably larger (27.8 million) – even though the overall population of the
EU and the MENA region is nearly identical. About 11.4 million EU emigrants
live in another EU country, but some 2 million persons still reside in the
MENA states and 14.3 million in other countries around the world. The 7.4
million MENA citizens residing in the EU in 2000 were met by 2 million
citizens of EU countries residing in the MENA region. Note that some of the
latter may be former citizens of MENA countries who returned from the
EU after having acquired the citizenship of their EU country of residence.
Of the three sample countries studied, Egypt had the smallest number
of citizens living abroad – three-quarters of whom were residing in another
MENA country (1 million alone in Saudi Arabia), and only 192,000 in the
EU (see also chapter 1, table 1.1 in this volume). In the year 2000, some
41,000 Egyptians were living in Germany. Morocco, on the other hand, a
country with only half the population of Egypt, has a considerably larger
diaspora: 2.6 million Moroccans or citizens with a Moroccan migration
background live abroad. Many of these live in the nearest EU countries, the
most important being France with around 760,000 persons from Morocco,
followed by Spain with 340,000 and Germany with 294,000. According to the
estimates of the DRC, Turkey has the largest diaspora of the three countries
(3 million persons), half of whom live in Germany. Other important destina-
tion countries are the Netherlands and France.
Being forced to leave one’s country is one of the major reasons for the
migratory developments in the MENA region over the past few decades.
In 2010, according to UNHCR data, more than 4.5 million persons were
refugees, were in refugee-like situations or were internally displaced in
the MENA region (see Table 7.6). Of these, 1.3 million alone were internally
displaced persons in Iraq, 1 million were refugees in Syria and 1 million in
Iran. A proportion of these refugees had come to seek refuge from outside
the respective country, e.g., refugees from Afghanistan f leeing to Iran.
Worldwide a total of 3 million refugees had f led the MENA region by 2010.
Of course, the numbers vary greatly from year to year and ref lect both
4 The Global Migrant-Origin Database of the Development Research Centre (DRC) at the
University of Sussex (UK) is a largely consistent source of estimates on the origin of migrants.
This database allows us to depict and calculate the residence of citizens from around the world
according to country (last data available for 2000).