BREAKING NEWS

UNHCR: Syrian, Iraqi and other asylum seekers on rise in West

By REUTERS

SEPTEMBER 26, 2014 08:25

Wars in Syria and Iraq, and instability in other hotspots are driving ever more people to seek asylum in wealthy nations, with requests on track to hit a 20-year high in 2014, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday.

Some 330,700 people sought refugee status in 44 industrialized countries in the first half of the year, an almost 24 per cent rise on the same period in 2013, it said.

If the trend continues, the number of new asylum claims could reach 700,000 in 2014, "the highest total for industrialized countries in 20 years and a level not seen since the 1990s conflict in former Yugoslavia," it said in a report.

"The international community needs to prepare their populations for the reality that in the absence of solutions to conflict more and more people are going to need refuge and care in the coming months and years," said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal.

More than two-thirds of all asylum claims in the first six months of this year were lodged in just six countries, in order: Germany, the United States, France, Sweden, Turkey and Italy, according to the UNHCR.

And more than one in seven claims - 48,400 - were from Syrians, twice as many as in the same period last year.

For the first time since 1999, Germany received the largest number of new asylum claims among industrialized countries, 65,700, mainly due to a rise in applications by Syrians. The figure was up by 50 percent from the same period in 2013.

The 28 member states of the European Union (EU) registered 216,300 claims, a 23 percent rise compared to the same six-month period last year, it said.

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