A report published by Luxembourg's Directorate of Immigration on Friday has shown that 381 people applied for international protection in the Grand Duchy in the month of October 2015, outside of the asylum-seekers received by the Office Luxembourgeois de l'Accueil et de l'Intégration (OLAI).
This shows a marked increase for the same month from the previous year, which stood at 128, but only marginally up on the figure for September 2015, during which sawa significant increase from 190 in August to 374 applications received.
In 2014 the total number of asylum applications received during the year up to the end of October stood at 894 (and 910 up to the same date in 2013), whilst this year figures show 1,595 have been submitted up up to the end of October 2015.
The countries with the highest number of applications were Iraq with 130 and Syria with 124, with 33 from Afghanistan. Last month, Syria had 156 and Iraq 101 applicants. In addition, the Balkans were represented by 20 from albania, 11 from Serbia and from Kosovo.
To date this year, 24.8% of all applications for political asylum have come from Syria (395), with 16.4% from Iraq (261) and 14% from Kosovo (223), with Albania 4th with 8.1% (129).
In October, 14.3% of the 86 application requests processed were granted, representing 33 positive responses (149 in total so far this year). Another 32 were refused international protection, one application was withdrawn, 18n applications were declared incompetent and another two were declared invalid due to multiple applications.
21 people were relocated during the month according to the Dublin Treaty (5 to Germany, 4 to Belgium, 8 to Spain, 2 to Austria, 1 to France and 1 to Switzerland), whilst this same Treaty meant that 5 people were transferred to Luxembourg.
38 people were returned to their home country, predominantly to the countries of Kosovo and Albania, at 10 and 7 people respectively. Of these 38 return journeys, all were voluntary. 615 people have so far been returned, both voluntarily and involuntarily, to their home countries in 2015.
Graph by Directorate of Immigration
