Number of asylum seekers halved from last year

Russian border on Storskog NorwayRussian border on Storskog Norway.Photo: Torstein Bøe / NTB scanpix

48 asylum seekers arrived in Norway last week, twelve fewer than the week before. The figure for February is likely to be more than halved from February last year.
All in all,  250 asylum seekers came to Norway during the four weeks from 1 to 28 February. This is revealed in  figures  presented on Monday by the Directorate of Immigration (UDI).
In February last year, 532 asylum seekers arrived in Norway. Unless a great many asylum seekers arrives on leap day,this means that this year’s figures are likely to be less than half of the figures for February last year.
In January, 389 asylum seekers came to Norway, down from 601 in January last year. Most of the asylum seekers  are from Afghanistan and Syria.
UDI informs Nettavisen that the forecast for 2016 as a whole remains unchanged at 33,000 asylum seekers.
– The decline we see now does not change this. In January last year the amount of asylum seekers were comparatively small, but then we saw a big increase in the number of people applying for asylum in the late summer and autumn, press advisor John Olav Kroken says to the newspaper.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today