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Austria approves large number of asylum applications in 2015

Xinhua, January 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Austria has approved some 14,000 asylum applications in the first instance from a total of over 36,000 cases that have been reviewed in 2015, the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA) said at a press conference in Vienna on Tuesday.

According to the BFA data, Syrians have gained the highest approval rate in the first instance with 95 percent of applications approved, followed by Afghans with 45 percent and Russians with 38 percent.

In addition, another 2,200 people were granted subsidiary protection, the BFA said.

Wolfgang Taucher, director of the BFA, said they have received a total of nearly 90,000 applications last year, with some 60,000 presented between August and December yet to be reviewed.

"We've doubled the number of decisions with one third more personnel dealing with three times of applications than usual," he said.

Asylum seekers to Austria must wait on average 6.3 months for a result, the director said, adding if an expected number of 100,000 to 120,000 applications were to be received in 2016, the wait time would be even longer. Endi