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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2011
In the 1990s, an increasing number of refugees make their way to the countries of the West. While the annual number of asylum seekers to Western Europe and North America averaged about 20,000 in the mid- 1970s, by 1990 this figure had jumped to more than 500,000. Unlike previous migrants, many of these asylum seekers came from non-Western countries, including Iran, Turkey, Sri Lanka, and Ghana. Their flight to the West was but a small part of a worldwide refugee problem that has grown larger since the 1980s, especially in the Third World. The vast majority of the 17.5 million people now considered to be refugees are located in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Despite the improved international climate created by the thaw of the Cold War, the current asylum crisis is likely to continue throughout the decade; the mass exodus of Kurds to Turkey and Iran in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war is one reminder of this.
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