Asylum claims rose 69 per cent last year

Asylum claims in Cyprus rose 69 per cent between 2017 and 2018, making it number one on the list of top five receiving countries per capita, data from the European Asylum Support Office (Easo) revealed on Monday.

By contrast, asylum application to the EU overall dropped 10 per cent, making it the third consecutive annual fall and returning numbers to pre-crisis levels, Easo said. Around 664,480 applications for international protection were filed in the EU in 2018, almost 10 per cent of them repeat applications.

In Cyprus in 2018, some 7,765 people applied for asylum compared with 4,600 in 2017, making Cyprus the top country in terms of per capita applications. In 2014, Cyprus had 1,745 applications, in 2015 it saw 2,265 and in 2016 this rose to 2,940.

Interior Minister Constantinos Petrides revealed only last week that already this year, around 3,000 people seeking asylum had crossed from the north compared with 2,635 for the entirety of 2018 and only 138 who crossed in 2017. He said the situation was becoming impossible to manage and has appealed a number of times to the EU for assistance.

Reports in the north said the asylum seekers – around 60 last week from Syria – were flying into Ercan (Tymbou) airport and being guided to the crossing points by Turkish Cypriot authorities.

According to the Easo, the top five receiving countries with the highest number of applications per capita in 2018 were Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Sweden, and Luxembourg.

“While the number of applications remained remarkably stable throughout 2018, the relative stability at EU+ level conceals stark variations between Member States and between individual citizenships,” the report said.

In terms of sheer numbers, Germany received the most applications (184,180) for the seventh consecutive year. “Cyprus (+69 per cent) and Spain (+48 per cent) recorded notable increases, while Italy (-53 per cent), Romania, Estonia and Latvia (all approximately -50 per cent) recorded notable decreases,” Easo said.

In the first five months of 2019, more than 290,000 applications for international protection were registered in the EU, an 11 per cent increase over the same period in 2018, Easo said.

During this period, the main countries of origin were Syria (8 per cent), Afghanistan and Venezuela (both 7 per cent), together accounting for almost one in four applications in the EU.

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