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1st LD Writethru: Over 15,000 asylum seekers granted protection status in 2016

Xinhua, January 7, 2017 Adjust font size:

A total of 15,478 asylum seekers were granted protection status in Belgium in 2016, the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS)'s 2016 annual report revealed Friday.

The CGRS granted protection to 57.7 of all applicants. A total of 12,197, or 45.8 percent, were granted refugee status, and 3,281, or 11.9 percent, were granted subsidiary protection status.

Over 22,000 decisions were taken by the CGRS in 2016, a 30-percent increase compared to 2015, and the first time in the history of the independent federal administration that so many decisions were made.

The main asylum seekers who were granted refugee status came from Syria (5,436), Iraq (2,742) and Somalia (769). Those benefiting from subsidiary protection status mainly came from Syria (1,615), Afghanistan (830) and Iraq (556).

The Foreign Office registered 44,760 applications in 2015, more than twice the number of applications registered in 2016 (18,170). Because of the caseload backlog, the high protection rate registered in 2016 was a direct consequence of the migration crisis in 2015. Furthermore, it was decided in 2016 that applicants coming from war-torn Syria would have priority, ensuring a higher protection rate.

However, it is unlikely there will be such a high protection rate in 2017. The number of asylum applications in Belgium dropped dramatically in 2016, mostly due to political choices made at the highest levels, such as the lockdown of the migration route connecting Turkey and Greece.

The report stated the CGRS had been much more efficient than last year in processing of refugee application cases. In the beginning of 2016, the number of asylum cases the CGRS had not made a decision on amounted to 11,000. By April, it had grown to 18,000, but fell to 14,000 by the end of the year.

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 CGRS' staff."

According to the independent federal administration, a normal caseload should be around 5,000 unprocessed cases. The CGRS now aims to effectively reduce its backlog by 10,000 cases by the end of 2017. Endit