The Department of Immigration in Luxembourg's Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs has confirmed that they have received a total of 131 applications for international protection (asylum) during July.
While this number is down substantially from the 160 recorded in June this year, it is significantly more that the figure of 106 who applied for asylum during July 2015. To date, the total numer of requests for asylum in Luxembourg has been 1,024, compared to 650 in the first 7 months of 2015 and 536 for the same period in 2014 (in which the total was 1,091).
The majority of the asylum applications have come from people fleeing Eritrea (24), with 17 from Syrian and 15 from Kosovo; in total, 45 have come from Europe, 55 from Africa and 31 from Asia. In the first seven months of the year, there have been the most applications from people fleeing Syria (167), followed by Iraq (136) and Kosovo (112).
In July, 244 decisions were taken by the ministry here concerning applications for asylum, of which 106 were granted refugee status. 75 were refused asylum and 30 were sent back to other countries (28 to Germany) where they had first entered Europe, with just one arriving (from Germany). 66 were repatriated, of which 51 went voluntarily and 15 were forcibly removed.
Graph: numbers of applications received
