Almost 86 000 asylum seekers in March 2023

In March 2023,  85 975 first-time asylum applicants (non-EU citizens) applied for international protection in the EU countries. Compared with March 2022 (74 310), it represents a 16% increase. There were also  6 945 subsequent applicants, a 4% increase compared with March 2022 (6 690). 

This information comes from the monthly asylum data published by Eurostat today. The article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on monthly asylum statistics.
 

Source dataset: migr_asyappctzm

 
Most first-time asylum applicants were Syrians and Afghans

As in the previous months, in March 2023, Syrians were the largest group of people seeking asylum (9 660 first-time applicants). They were followed by Afghans (9 155), ahead of Venezuelans (6 415), Colombians (5 980) and Turks (5 615).

Following Russia's military aggression against Ukraine, there was a significant increase in Ukrainian first-time asylum applicants (from 2 105 in February 2022 to 12 190 in March 2022), but the numbers have been decreasing monthly down to 1 160 in March 2023. This is also because people fleeing Ukraine benefit from temporary protection.

In March 2023, the number of first-time asylum applicants with Russian citizenship ranked 8th among all citizenships, with 2 480 applications.

Germany, Spain, France and Italy account for 74% of first-time asylum applicants

In March 2023, Germany (25 170), Spain (15 570), France (11 870) and Italy (11 335) received the highest number of first-time asylum applicants, accounting for almost three-quarters (74%) of all first-time applicants in the EU.

In total in the EU, there were 192 first-time asylum applicants per million people in March 2023.

Compared with the population of each EU country (on 1 January 2022), the highest rates of registered first-time applicants in March 2023 were recorded in Cyprus (1 859 applicants per million people) and Croatia (965). By contrast, the lowest rate was observed in Hungary (0).

2 620 unaccompanied minors applying for asylum

Source dataset: migr_asyumactm

In March 2023, 2 620 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum for the first time in the EU, mostly from Afghanistan (860) and Syria (565). 

The EU countries which received the highest number of asylum applications from unaccompanied minors in March 2023 were Germany (990), the Netherlands (260), Italy (230), Spain (225), Bulgaria (215), Austria (210) and Greece (200).