Malta had the fourth highest rate of registered applicants for asylum last year (3.2 per thousand inhabitants) following Sweden (8.4), Hungary (4.3) and Austria (3.3).

There were 1.2 asylum applicants per thousand inhabitants in the EU.

Eurostat said today that over a year, the number of asylum applicants registered in the European Union has increased by 191,000 (+44 per cent) to reach a peak of 626,000 in 2014.

In particular, the number of Syrians rose by 72,000, from 50 000 in 2013 to almost 123,000 in 2014.

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