10% More than Last Year
The first months of this year predicted an increase in asylum applications filed in the EU+ countries compared to last year. Three quarters later, data shows that EU+ countries have received 10% more applications than during the nine first months of this year compared to the same period last year, despite months when the flux of applications was higher or lower.
Latest asylum trends show that the EU+ countries received over a half-million applications, or exactly 515.825 in the first 9 months of 2019, 10% more than from January through September 2018, with Syrians, Afghanis and Venezuelans topping the table as the largest national groups of asylum seekers, again.
Alongside the increase in the number of applications, the proportion of those receiving a positive decision, also known as the recognition rate, was 34% compared to the first three quarters of 2018, when it was 33%.
Syrians, Afghanis, and Venezuelans Remain Largest National Groups of Asylum Seekers
According to data by the European Asylum Support Office for the sixth consecutive month, applications lodged by nationals of Afghanistan outnumbered those by Venezuelans, reaching the highest number ever in September since December 2016.
The list of the ten top countries most asylum applicants were from, was completed by Pakistan, Turkey, Iraq, Colombia, Iran, Albania, and Nigeria. Pakistanis, Albanians, and Afghans. The last marked the highest per-month increase in September, while nationals of Iraqi were the ones to mark the largest month-to-month decrease.
“Most of the main citizenships of origin lodged more applications in January-September in 2019 compared to the same period a year ago. This was especially the case for Latin American nationalities. For instance, Venezuelans – the third main citizenship in January-September this year – lodged 41% more applications than a year ago, whereas Salvadorians increased by 43%, Hondurans by 83%, Colombians by 102% and Nicaraguans by 154% compared to the same period in the previous year,” a press release on these statistics elaborates.
Nationals of visa-exempt countries continued to file a high number of applications, 12,593 only in September. The majority of them were nationals of Latin America countries.
The share of repeated applications remained high among nationals of Western Balkans countries, with 35% of Serbia applicants, 33% of Kosovo applicants and 24% of North Macedonia applicants filing at least a second asylum application, after the previous ones were rejected.
Asylum Seekers Targeting Countries With Lower Population Sizes
Based on data provided by the EASO, within these 9 months, asylum seekers were more focused on filing their applications at countries with lower population sizes as Malta and Cyprus.
“For example, in July the most applications per capita (relative to the countries’ population size) were lodged in Cyprus and Malta, followed by Greece, Sweden, and Luxembourg. As of the spring of 2019, Cyprus had been receiving, on average, about 1 500 applications per million inhabitants each month, more than twice as many as Malta (close to 700) and about three times as many as Greece (over 450),” the press release by EASO reads.
SOURCE: Schengen Visa Info
