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Belgium grants over 15,000 asylum seekers protection status in 2016

Xinhua, January 6, 2017 Adjust font size:

Altogether 15,478 asylum seekers were granted a protection status in Belgium in 2016, registering the highest record, the country's Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS)'s annual report said on Friday.

Among them, 12,197, or 45.8 percent of the total applicants, were granted a refugee status, while 3,281, representing 11.9 percent, were given a subsidiary protection status, according to CGRS spokesman Damien Dermaux.

Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq ranked the first three countries of origin of the refugees.

Moreover, the CGRS made over 22,000 decisions on the refugee application cases in 2016, a 30 percent rise compared with the figure in 2015.

The report attributed the improvement in efficiency to "an increase in staff, the implementation of internal measures targeting a better efficiency and a strong commitment of all CRGS' staff."

The number of asylum cases the CGRS did not handle amounted to over18,000 in April last year, followed by a decrease to 14,000 at the end of the year. Endi