Syrian and Malian refugees seeking asylum in Spain rocket in number
Thursday, July 4, 2013 @ 12:49 PM
ARMED conflict in Mali and Syria is causing applications for asylum in Spain to rocket, says the ministry of foreign affairs.
A total of 2,480 asylum-seekers in the first six months of the occupations of Mali and Syria, have asked for residence in the country on humanitarian grounds, due to the life-threatening situation in their homelands.
This is nearly as many as in the whole of 2012, when Spain received 2,588 cases.
According to the UN, applicants from Mali by May this year totalled 880, compared to 101 in the whole of last year.
Syrian refugees total 280 already for 2013, compared to 225 for the whole of 2012.
But the Spanish government stresses that the number of requests it receives is far lower than that of many other European countries.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com