Asylum Claims Rose 20 Percent Last Year, U.N. Refugee Agency Says
By RICK GLADSTONE
Published: March 27, 2012
Escapees from new uprisings in the Middle East and Africa, combined with
a rising tide of people fleeing chronic conflicts like those in Afghanistan and Iraq, contributed to a 20 percent increase in requests for asylum in industrialized countries last year, the United Nations refugee agency reported Tuesday.
Its annual report, Asylum Levels and Trends in Industrialized Countries 2011,
said 441,300 people requested asylum last year, compared with 368,000
in 2010. The report surveyed 44 countries in Europe, North America, Asia
and Australia.
The report said that the region with the largest increase in claims for
the year was southern Europe, where 66,800 people sought asylum last
year, most of them arriving by boat in Italy and Malta, an increase of
87 percent from the year before.
“The large number of asylum claims clearly shows 2011 to have been a
year of great difficulty for very many people,” Antonio Guterres, the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement from
his Geneva office.
Together, the 38 countries of Europe registered 327,200 asylum claims,
more than any other region; the figure was a 19 percent increase over
2010. North America registered 99,400 claims, a 25 percent increase.
The country of origin for the largest number of asylum seekers was
Afghanistan — 35,700, a 34 percent increase from the year before. China,
the world’s most populous nation, remained the second-largest source of
asylum seekers, at 24,400, followed by Iraq, at 23,500.
The United States was the individual country covered by the report that
received the most applications for asylum, estimated at 74,000. But the
report noted that South Africa, which was not covered, received 107,000
asylum claims in 2011. South Africa has attracted an enormous number of
refugees lately, not only from neighbors in southern Africa but also
from as far away as Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The report noted that while claims for asylum are an indicator of the
desperation created by conflicts, they are not an indicator of broader
migration trends, and do not reflect the number of people who are
officially recognized as refugees.
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