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The number of asylum seekers in the EU from the Western Balkans is increasing

2023-02-22 22:58:16Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The number of asylum seekers in the EU from the Western Balkans is increasing
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Around 966,000 people sought international protection in the European Union in 2022, up 50 percent from 2021. This is the highest number of asylum seekers since the 2013 refugee crisis, the EU Asylum Agency (EUAA) said. ) on February 22.

This figure does not include over 4 million Ukrainian refugees who received special temporary protection status from the EU in March of last year.

Most asylum applications were made by Syrians, Afghans and Turks, but the number of applications from the Western Balkans, apart from Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia, also increased, EUAA said.

According to the data of this agency, 3,197 residents of Kosovo applied for asylum and this right was recognized for 8 percent of them. Of the total number of applications, 727 were repeated requests for asylum.

The number of requests for asylum from citizens of Kosovo has increased in 2022, since in the previous year 2,360 people had applied for asylum in the EU.

Meanwhile, in 2019, a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, 3,818 citizens of Kosovo had applied for asylum in the European bloc.

The most applications for asylum were registered in 2015, when nearly 73,000 citizens of Kosovo sought asylum in the European bloc.

Meanwhile, 4,172 citizens of Serbia applied for asylum, or 900 more than in 2021. According to the data, only 3 percent of asylum applications were accepted.

Albania has the highest number of asylum seekers, namely 13,043. Of this number, 2,349 were repeated requests, while only 6 percent of applications were accepted.

In North Macedonia, 6,476 people applied for asylum and close to 3,000 of these were repeated requests, while the acceptance rate of asylum requests was 1 percent. In 2021, the number of Macedonian citizens who had applied for asylum in the EU was 11,210.

According to the report, about 4 percent of asylum seekers (43,000) were unaccompanied minors. This is the highest figure recorded since 2015.

The EU agency linked the increase in the number of asylum requests to the easing of restrictive measures due to the coronavirus pandemic, increased food insecurity and conflicts in many parts of the world.

After more than 10 years of war and economic crisis, Syria continues to be the country with the most asylum seekers, namely 132,000 applications for asylum have been registered.

After the Syrians, it is the Afghans who are fleeing due to security, humanitarian and financial problems since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. Over the past year, 129,000 Afghans have applied for asylum in the EU.

In third place is Turkey with 55,000 applications, a figure twice as high as in 2021. The increase in inflation, the "backsliding of democracy" and several other factors are believed to have led to the increase in the number of applications, the agency said. of the EU.

"Visa-free travel to non-EU states in the Western Balkans is likely to have also contributed to the increased number of requests from Turkey and Tunisia," EUAA said.

This EU agency did not indicate which countries received the most asylum requests last year, but according to an internal EU migration report, which the AP had access to, Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Italy are the countries that have received the most asylum requests.


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