The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) reported that the number of asylum applications in the European Union has grown for the first time since 2015, and this trend is expected to continue despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
EU Member States reported an 11 percent increase in the number of asylum applications last year, the first annual increase since the onset of the migrant and refugee crisis.
The increase is due, in particular, to “a sharp increase in the number of applicants from Venezuela (+103 percent for 2018) and Colombia (+214 percent for 2018),” the EASO said.
“Some EU + countries, such as Cyprus, France, Greece, Malta and Spain, received more asylum applications in 2019 than during the so-called migration crisis in 2015 and 2016,” he added.