Number of Albanian asylum seekers grows, 6% of the total in France, up to 10% in Ireland

The number of asylum applications from Albanians in EU member countries is growing. They are present in almost every statistical report that European institutions publish, ranking them alongside citizens from countries in conflict such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. In the latest figures issued by the European office for statistics, Eurostat covering the second quarter of 2018, Albanians are once again on the list with 3% of the total number of asylum seekers. The same percentage also applies for people coming from countries such as Eritrea, Iran or Turkey, not far from Syria which ranks first on the list of asylum seekers with 13% of the total demands for asylum in the EU, or Afghanistan with 7% of the total, Iraq with 6%, Nigeria and Pakistan with 4%. On the other hand, Eurostat figures also suggest that Albanians rank first in the list of asylum seekers in EU member countries such as France. In the second quarter of this year, the number of their asylum applications was 1495 or 6% of the total.

In Ireland, they rank second with 70 applications or 10% of the total number of applications filed in this country. So, despite the policies that authorities in the country are implementing, the number of asylum applications made by Albanians is not falling. “In the second quarter of 2018, 136.700 asylum seekers requested international protection for the first time in the European Union member countries. This represents a growth of 4% compared to the first quarter of 2018, when there were 131.400 applications. The majority of these applications were made by people coming from Syria, Iraq and Venezuela”, experts of Eurostat explain.