The media generally focuses on immigration and movements outside Africa, but migratory movements also occur within the continent. In this article, we rank the top 10 countries with the most foreigners in their territory.
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The Ivory Coast
Côte d’Ivoire ranks first in this ranking with 2.5 million foreigners for a total population of 23 million. The country is known for its warm welcome and ease for foreigners to obtain nationality and related privileges.
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South Africa
South Africa has a total population of 53 million. Since 1994, the country has experienced a huge wave of migration. To date, it has about 2.4 million foreigners including one million undocumented migrants.
3. Nigeria
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with a total population of 173.6 million. Thanks to the rich ethnic diversity of this country (250 ethnic groups) and the boom caused by oil exports, Nigeria has attracted many migrants since the 1970s. Today Nigeria has about 1.3 million foreigners, majority is in Lagos.
4. Kenya
About 1 million foreigners live in Kenya. They are mostly Ugandans, Tanzanians, Rwandans, Sudanese, Somalis, Eritreans and Ethiopians. In Kenya, there are also a large number of Nigerians, Ghanaians, Cameroonians and Congolese.
5. Libya
Before the Libyan crisis and the assassination of Libyan leader Muhammar Gaddafi, Libya was the country with the most foreigners in Africa. After the NATO-US coalition moves, Libya has about 800,000 foreigners living on its territory. The latter, however, use Libya as a means of reaching the European continent.
6. Ethiopia
With 91 million inhabitants and about 720,000 foreigners, Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa.
7. Burkina Faso
The country of honest men is the third country in West Africa with the largest number of foreigners (700,000).
8. South Sudan
Although South Sudan is a very young country, it is among the top 10 to have the most migrants. This new country has about 630,000 foreigners despite the very unstable political climate.
9. Uganda
With a population of about 38 million, Uganda has about 540,000 foreigners on its territory.
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Rwanda
To close this ranking, Rwanda is positioned with about 450,000 foreigners.