Malta recorded 563 asylum applications during the first six months of this year, an increase of 26 per cent compared with the corresponding period of 2013, according to a new UNHCR report.
In Malta’s case, the top three nationalities of asylum applicants between April and June were Somalian (84), Libyan (74) and Syrian (70).
These were followed by migrants from Gambia, Nigeria, Mali, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Senegal and Ukraine.
Among the applications recorded between January and March, 63 were from Syrians, 11 from Nigerians, and a further 11 from Iranians.
We are clearly into an era of growing conflict
The UN Refugee Agency’s report, which is based on data received from 44 industrialised countries, noted that Europe, North America and parts of the Asia-Pacific were seeing rising refugee claims from Syria, Iraq and other conflict zones.
A total of 330,700 people applied for refugee status in 44 countries between the start of January and the end of June, a 24 per cent rise from a year earlier.
Southern Europe (consisting of Albania, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain and Turkey) reported the largest relative increase in mid-year asylum levels among the European regions.
This region received 60,800 asylum requests during the first half of 2014, a 73 per cent increase compared with the first six months of 2013.
This increase was essentially in the number of individuals who requested international protection in Italy and Turkey, the UNHCR noted.
The former registered 24,500 new asylum claims, many of whom arrived by boat, while the number of asylum applications registered by UNHCR in Turkey exceeded 27,700.
The report warned that, based on historical norms of higher numbers of asylum seekers in the second half of each year, 2014 could produce as many as 700,000 claims – the highest total for industrialised countries in 20 years and a level not seen since the 1990s conflict in former Yugoslavia.
“We are clearly into an era of growing conflict,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said.
“The global humanitarian system is already in great difficulty. The international community needs to prepare their populations for the reality that, in the absence of solutions to conflict, more and more people are going to need refuge and care in the coming months and years.
“Unfortunately, it is not clear that the resources and the access to asylum will be available to help them.”
Overall, Syria was the main country of origin for people seeking asylum with a more than two-fold increase.
Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of people have become newly displaced this year, produced 21,300 asylum applications, followed by Afghanistan, Eritrea and Serbia.
Germany, the US, France, Sweden and Turkey were the top receiving countries.
Worldwide, 51.2 million people were forcibly displaced as of the end of 2013.
Most are either internally displaced within their own countries, or else are hosted as refugees in states bordering on war zones.