168 asylum requests were rejected in the first quarter of 2017. In the same period, 92 asylum seekers were sent back to their home countries.
The Grand Duchy granted refugee status to 189 asylum seekers during the first three months of 2017 and turned away 168 in the same period.
Luxembourg's Foreign Affairs Ministry, in charge of immigration, released these new figures on asylum seekers in Luxembourg for January to March 2017.
The requests for international protection were comparatively high in the first three months of the year with 225 in January, 235 in February and 222 in March. Previous years had only seen numbers of around 100 requests per month in the same period, except for January 2016, during which 265 were recorded.
In a statement explaining the recent figures, the ministry said that the number of request do not necessarily match the number of arrivals in OLAI structures, as there is usually a time gap between arrival and the official request for asylum.
This year's March requests include 52 Syrians relocated from Greece in the framework of the EU's relocation scheme.
Asylum seekers from Balkans turned away
The total number of asylum requests in 2017 stands at 682 - higher than the 487 at the same time in 2016 and more than twice as high as at the end of March 2015 (275).
In line with recent times, most asylum requests came from Syrians -- with 132 asking for protection in the first three months of 2017 -- followed by 96 Serbian requests. Requests were also filed by Moroccans (69), Algerians (56) and Albanians (41) among others.
Luxembourg rejected a total of 168 requests for international protection in 2017, most of which were already filed in previous years.
Overall, Luxembourg's immigration authorities took 952 decisions from January to March 2017, positive or negative. That number is already relatively high compared with a total of 1,248 decisions taken in 2014 and 1,232 in 2015.
But after the refugee crisis in 2015, total decisions in 2016 shot up to 2,319.
The Grand Duchy also sent 92 asylum seekers back to their countries of origin in the first quarter of 2017.
Most of them came from the Balkans with 37 from Kosovo, 11 from Albania and 13 from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Out of these 92 people, 75 returned home voluntarily, 17 were forced to return.
SOURCE: Luxemburger Wort
