Asylum statistics February 2016

The CGRS has published the asylum figures of February 2016.

Evolution

  • In February 2016, the Immigration Office registered 1,523 persons as asylum applicants in Belgium. Every person is counted as an asylum applicant.
  • This is about one third of the monthly average of persons (5,885) who filed an asylum application during the peak period between August and December 2015. The number of asylum applicants registered in February 2016 is somewhat lower than a year ago (1,642 persons in February 2015).
  • The decrease is mainly due to a further decline of the number of asylum applicants from Afghanistan (from 2,176 persons in December 2015 to 363 in February 2016). The number of asylum applicants from Syria (from 1,076 persons in December 2015 to 290 in February 2016) and Iraq (from 494 persons in December 2015 to 111 in February 2016) strongly declined.
  • The past few weeks, the number of asylum applications has decreased not only in Belgium. The same tendency is noticed in other European countries. Also in the Scandinavian countries and Holland, the decrease is striking. In other EU Member States such as Germany, the number of asylum applicants remains very high.
  • It is too early to draw conclusions from this evolution. In view of the international situation, it is possible that the number of asylum applicants will go up again. 2015 was characterized by the highest number of asylum applicants in Belgium (35,476 cases or 44,760 persons) since the year 2000 (41,982 cases).

Men – women – children

  • In February 2016, more males (including children) filed an application for asylum in Belgium than females. The proportion is 60.5 % to 39.5 %. Last month, the proportion was still 70.8% men to 29.2% women.
  • In February 2016, 190 (self-declared) minor children and youngsters, unaccompanied by a parent/their parents, applied for asylum in Belgium. This is a further sharp decrease compared to the period between August and December 2015, when a monthly average of 511 (self-declared) unaccompanied foreign minors filed an application for asylum in Belgium.

Countries of origin

  • The majority of persons who applied for asylum in Belgium in February 2016, come from 3 countries: 23.8 % are Afghans, 19 % are Syrians and 7.3 % are Iraqi.
  • Also in the top 5, in February 2016, Somalia and Russia accounted respectively for 5.4 % and 4.3 % of the total number of asylum applicants.
  • Another tendency, i.e. more migrants from North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria…) filing an application for asylum in Europe, is at present not noticeable in Belgium.

Decisions

  • In February 2016, the CGRS took 1,945 decisions. These decisions refer to 2,259 persons. In February, the CGRS increased its output by 24.9 % compared to January 2016 (1,557 decisions).
  • In February 2016, the proportion of persons who were granted refugee status (44.4 %) or subsidiary protection status (15.1 %), compared to the total number of persons who received a final decision, amounts to 59.5 %. This corresponds to 1,088 decisions for 1,343 persons. By doing so, the CGRS continues the trend of 2015, when the CGRS granted refugee status in 6 out of 10 decisions.

Backlog

  • The total caseload of the CGRS is the number of cases for which the CGRS has not taken any decision yet. At the end of February 2016, the total caseload amounted to 16,481 cases. In 2015, the caseload doubled from 5,565 asylum files to 11,305 files and it continues to increase. As the CGRS considers 4,500 cases as a normal caseload, the actual backlog amounts to 11,981 asylum cases. The Immigration Office also has a backlog.
  • It should be noted that the caseload will continue to increase. As a result, there is a continuing need for reinforcement in order to eliminate the backlog and to manage the present influx of asylum applicants.

                            

15 March 2016

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