The CGRS has released its asylum figures for October 2016.
EVOLUTION
- In October 2016, the Immigration Office registered 1,705 asylum applicants in Belgium. Every person (including children) is counted as an asylum applicant.
- This is an increase of 14 % compared to September 2016 (1,496).
- In October 2016, the number of asylum seekers was more than three times lower compared to October 2015 (6,043).
- The lower number of asylum applications in the first ten months of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015 is mainly due to a sharp decline in the number of persons
- from Iraq: from an average of 789 persons per month in 2015 to an average of 97 per month in 2016, i.e. an eightfold decrease,
- from Syria: from an average of 867 persons per month in 2015 to an average of 228 per month in 2016, i.e. a fourfold decrease,
- from Afghanistan: from an average of 692 persons per month in 2015 to an average of 250 per month in 2016, i.e. two and a half times lower.
- Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq are still part of the top 10 countries of origin of asylum seekers in Belgium in 2016 and taken together represent 37 % of asylum seekers in 2016, compared to 63 % in 2015.
MEN – WOMEN - CHILDREN
- In October 2016, more men (including children) than women applied for asylum in Belgium, respectively 60.9 % and 39.1 %. For the whole of 2015, the proportion of men was somewhat higher: 70.8 % men and 29.2 % women.
- In October 2016, 94 (self-declared) unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in Belgium.
COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN
- In October 2016, Syria remained the most important country of origin of asylum applicants in Belgium, with 253 applicants, i.e. 15.4 % of the total number for October, followed by Turkey (175 applicants, 10.3 %), Afghanistan (105 applicants, 6.2 %), Iraq (96 applicants, 5.6 %) and Albania (93 applicants, 5.5 %).
DECISIONS
- In October 2016, the CGRS took 1,814 decisions. These decisions concerned 2,285persons.
- The CGRS has taken 18,748 decisions (corresponding to 23,350 persons) since the start of 2016, i.e. more decisions than in the whole of 2015 (16,929 decisions).
- In 2016, the CGRA reached a protection rate of 58.8 %: This is the proportion of decisions granting refugee status (47.0 %) and subsidiary protection status (11.8 %) compared to the total number of final decisions. This rate is in line with 2015, when the CGRS granted an international protection status in 6 out of 10 decisions.
- In absolute figures, during the first ten months of 2016, the CGRS granted an international protection status to 13,272 persons.
BACKLOG
- The total caseload of the CGRS is the number of asylum cases in which the CGRS has not yet taken a decision. At the end of October 2016, the total caseload amounted to 16.209 cases. Since June 2016, the CGRS has effectively been reducing its backlog.