ARMENIA GOT 210 APPLICATIONS

17:26:54 – 25/03/2009
Lragir.am

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees issued its 2008
report on the number of asylum seekers. According to this report, last
year the number of the asylum seekers tangibly increased. Instead of
the 321 471 applications registered in 2007, the number of the
applications in 2008 was 365 346. The top country of origin of asylum
applicants in 2008 was Iraq (40 500), followed by Somali (21 823),
Russia (20 477), Afghanistan (18 459), China (17 428), Serbia (15
204), Nigeria (13 708), Pakistan (13 268), Eritrea (12 428), and
Mexico (12 169). Armenia is 22nd with 4 368 applications. Our
neighboring Iran is the 11th (10 813), Turkey- 13th (7427), Georgia-
13th (5 548), Azerbaijan is the 39th with 1 834 applications.

The UNHCR report indicates that generally asylum applications are
submitted to the European countries, the U.S., Canada, as well as
Australia and New Zeeland.

The U.S. is the main destination of asylum applications- 49 020
applications. It is followed by Canada (36 900), France (35 160),
Italy (31 160), Great Britain (30 550), Sweden (24 350), Germany (21
370), Greece (19 880), and Armenia got 620 applications, whereas in
2007-300 applications.