Asylum statistics October 2016

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.
10 November 2016

Information about the asylum procedure, tailored to the asylum seeker, can be found at : asyluminbelgium.be.