Off the wire
• Climate Change causes acute water shortage in parts of Ghana  • Urgent: Gold up on weaker U.S. dollar  • 3rd LD: 18 killed in huge blast in Turkey's capital  • Prosecutor general notes reduction in Latvia's crime rate  • Austria sets limits for asylum seekers along its southern border crossings  • Xinhua Insight: China innovates sci-tech research to catch next "gravitational wave"  • Maltese minister vows to fight human trafficking  • UNEP leads eradication of chemical pollutants  • EU extends sanctions on Zimbabwe's Mugabe for another year  • 2nd LD: 18 killed, 45 injured in explosions in Turkey's capital  
You are here: 　 Home

Austria sees 11,000 asylum applications since beginning of 2016

Xinhua, February 18, 2016 Adjust font size:

A total of 11,000 people have submitted asylum applications in Austria since the beginning of 2016, the Interior Ministry stated according to an APA report Wednesday.

A further 8,000 asylum applications based on family reunification that do not yet appear in the statistics are still expected to come, meaning the total could already have reached half of the maximum 37,500 asylum seekers the government has stated it would accept for the entire year.

The ministry would not, however, comment on this, noting that it was still awaiting legal opinion as relates to the enforcement of the upper limit.

The total means an average of over 200 asylum applications have been received each day, though this is expected to drop somewhat with the separate interior ministry announcement Wednesday that it would limit the number of asylum applications it would accept at its southern border crossing sites to 80 per day.

It was also estimated that 3,200 refugees entered Austria from Feb. 9 to 15, though the majority travelled onward to Germany. Endit