Fewer people stayed at asylum centers last year

The number of residents in the asylum centers went down to around 2,500 last year. It is the lowest number of residents in centers since 1997.

There are far fewer asylum seekers than before. In 2019, 2,304 asylum seekers came to Norway. It is also the lowest since 1997, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security writes in a press release.

Last year, most asylum seekers came from Syria, Turkey and Eritrea. It is the same countries as the year before, but then most of them came from Turkey, not Syria.

As a result of the decline in the number of asylum seekers, the UDI closed ten centers last year.

Fewer single minors
At year-end, 2,536 people lived in 21 asylum centers, down from 3,621 residents a year ago. The number of single minor asylum seekers has dropped from 159 people in 2018 to 135 last year. In this category, most came from Afghanistan and Syria.

75 per cent of asylum applications last year were granted when Dublin cases and the like are excluded. Dublin cases are cases where Norway asks another European country to process asylum applications. Including all cases, the proportion of grants was 61 per cent.

More grants in Norway
“Norway has a significantly higher proportion of grants than the average in Europe. This is due to the composition of asylum seekers and the fact that we receive fewer from countries that do not need protection. The scheme for speedy processing of obviously unfounded applications is a contributing factor to this,” says UDI Director Frode Forfang in a press release.

Asylum seekers from 107 countries came to Norway in 2019, but from 75 of these countries fewer than ten asylum seekers came (from 30 countries there was one asylum seeker). Among the countries with the highest number of asylum seekers in 2019, Russia and Albania stand out with a high refusal rate.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today