The number of asylum seekers in Europe has increased by 26 percent

In 2022, for the first time, the number of people applying for asylum in EU countries has increased significantly. Eurostat figures from the European Union’s statistics office show a 28 per cent jump. The year 2015-16 has become a record for the arrival of refugees in Europe Since the start of the war in Syria, the process of saving lives has continued year after year. That year saw the largest influx of refugees into the EU. Although the figure for 2022 is much lower than that peak, it has increased by about 26 percent year after year. At the moment people are fleeing because of the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine. In view of this, it would not be wrong to assume from now on that this year is going to break last year’s record. Within a month of the war, 3.5 million people had fled their homes in Ukraine.

As of 2022, Eurostat reported that in 2022, 535,000 applications had been received from people coming from outside the European Union and, for the first time, seeking asylum. These figures are from 27 countries in the European Union. Such a number was first seen in 2014. Last year, Syrians were the most asylum seekers. Syrians have had the largest share of these applications for almost a decade. Last year it was about 18 percent. After Syria, 16 percent are from Afghanistan and 5 percent from Iraq. If we look at the number year after year, the number of Afghans seeking asylum has increased by 90 percent in just one year.

The reason was decades of violence and then the return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, which is on the way to restructuring. In August 2022, the Taliban returned to power after nearly two decades. At the same time, year after year, there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of people from Syria and Iraq who have applied for asylum in Europe. There was no shortage of people from all over the world seeking asylum in Europe. The number of people applying from countries like Colombia has also dropped by 55 percent. At the same time, the appeal of Venezuelans also dropped by 43 percent. The number of asylum seekers in Russia dropped by 20 percent last year. If we look at the age of all the applicants, about one third of them are under 18 years of age.

If we look at people over the age of 65, women are older than men. If we look at it all together, not one out of every three is female, which means that overall the number of asylum seekers is much higher than that of men. Germany remains strong 28% of all applicants have sought asylum in Germany Then there are France, Spain, Italy, and Austria. These two countries together account for about two-thirds of the refugees. In addition, European countries such as Cyprus have the highest number of asylum seekers this year. Eurostat reported that as of the end of last year, the applications of about 759,000 people were pending and no final decision had been reached on their asylum. RP / NR (Reuters).