The number of people seeking asylum in industrialised countries fell in the second quarter of this year to the lowest level in 17 years, continuing a sharp downward trend, the United Nations said yesterday.
The drop was mainly due to steadily shrinking numbers of three big groups fleeing alleged persecution - Afghans, Iraqis and ethnic Albanians from Kosovo - which has led to fewer claims in host countries including Britain and Germany, it said.
Some 86,800 people lodged claims between April and June in 30 wealthy states, compared to 107,911 in the same period last year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"It's the lowest level since 1987," UNHCR spokesman Mr Rupert Colville said.
Asylum claims in industrialised countries totalled 247,000 for all of 1987. They peaked at 886,000 in 1992 during the conflicts in Bosnia and other parts of former Yugoslavia. "Three big groups - Afghanis, Iraqis and Kosovars - have fallen away," Mr Colville said.
Russians, mainly Chechens fleeing the troubled breakaway region, accounted for the largest group of asylum-seekers to wealthy countries at 7,310, followed by people from Serbia and Montenegro, including minorities from Kosovo, at 5,380. Asylum-seekers from China, Turkey and India followed, while the numbers of Afghans and Iraqis continued to decline, it said.
France received the most asylum claims during the second quarter of this year with 14,050, followed by the United States with 9,600, Britain with 9,210 and Germany with 8,520, according to the UNHCR, which had no data for Italy.
"It is not so much that France has gone up. The numbers in Germany, which topped the list for about 18 years, have steadily fallen over the past few years, and the UK, which was the top receiving country at the beginning of the 21st century, has seen numbers fall quite sharply," Mr Colville said.
Six states which joined the EU in May - Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia - bucked the trend, registering significant increases.
The enlarged EU bloc of 25 states now accounts for 75 per cent of all asylum claims received, according to the UNHCR. - (Reuters)