Number of Germany asylum seekers doubles

THE number of asylum seekers in Germany more than doubled in the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2015, it was revealed today.

Germany registered around 181,000 claimants between January and March to add to nearly half a million people who arrived in the final quarter of last year.

Critics say asylum application figures do not reflect the full scale of the influx into Germany.

It is believed many are either working on the black market or have turned to crime. Of those who have applied for asylum this year, almost half were ­Syrians.

More than six in 10 applications were approved, the Interior ­Ministry said today. The number of applications was 60,000 in March, up 87 per cent on March 2015.

Iraqis and Afghans were the second and third largest groups in the first quarter. Officials are still trying to process last year’s huge backlog of arrivals.

Most of the record 1.1 million migrants who arrived in Germany last year are in shelters where they must wait for weeks or months before they can apply for permission to stay.

An overstretched Federal Office for Migration and Refugees made decisions on 150,233 asylum applications in the first quarter, an almost 159 per cent increase on the year before.

The asylum approval rate was 61.6 per cent, up from about 42 per cent before the refugee crisis, the ministry said, as numbers of Syrians fleeing the...
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