Prague, Nov 28 (CTK) – A total of 1273 foreigners applied for asylum in the Czech Republic in the first ten months of the year, which was 28 fewer compared to the same period of last year, according to a report by the asylum and migration policy of the Interior Ministry CTK has received.
Ukrainians who have accounted for the biggest numbers of applicants in the long term led the rankings this year as well.
They filed 430 applications, which was 143 fewer annually.
They were followed by Iraqis with 146 applications, which was 124 more than in 2015.
The increase is attributable to the project of resettling Christian refugees from Iraq, which started this year. Eighty-nine people arrived in the country within it this year.
The government eventually scrapped the programme after a part of the refugees left for Germany and some returned back home.
Other stronger groups of asylum applicants this year came from Syria, Cuba, China and Vietnam. Their numbers ranged between 58 and 81.
Fewer than 50 applications were submitted by citizens of Afghanistan, Armenia, Georgia and Russia.
According to the Interior Ministry’s statistics, asylum was granted to 146 people and another 268 people received complementary protection which is granted for a fixed period.
The recipients are people who are not granted asylum, but who face a threat if they return home.
In 799 cases, asylum was not granted to the applicants, or authorities stopped the asylum settlement procedure.
Another 743 applications have not been reviewed as yet.
Last year, 1525 people applied for asylum, which was an increase of 369 annually.
In 2010-13, the number of applicants did not cross 1000, while before, several thousands of applicants annually was no exception.
The year 2001 with more than 18,000 applications was extreme.
