The Department of Immigration in Luxembourg's Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs has confirmed that they have received a total of 162 applications for international protection (asylum) during November.
This number is up significantly down from the 269 recorded in October this year as well as the figure of 423 who applied for asylum during November 2015. To date, the total number of requests for asylum in Luxembourg this year has been 1,852, compared to 2,018 in the first 11 months of 2015 and 1,008 for the same period in 2014 (in which the total was 1,091).
The majority of the asylum applications have come from people leaving Serbia (27) and Albania (21), with 19 from Syria; in total, 91 have come from Europe, 42 from Africa and 28 from Asia, with 1 from the Americas. In the first 11 months of the year, there have been the most applications from people fleeing Syria (257), followed by Kosovo (207) and Albania (209).
In November, 282 decisions were taken by the ministry here concerning applications for asylum, of which 52 were granted refugee status. 50 were refused asylum and 54 were sent back to other countries where they had first entered Europe, including 22 to Albania and 10 to Bosnia; 47 went voluntarily and 7 were forcibly removed.
