In August 2024, 69 270 first-time asylum applicants (non-EU citizens) applied for international protection in EU countries, a fall of almost a quarter (24.8%) compared with August 2023 (92 055).
There were also 6 285 subsequent applicants, representing a 4.6% increase compared with August 2023 (6 010).
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
In August 2024, Syrians remained the largest group of people seeking asylum (13 340 first-time applicants), followed by Afghans (5 605) and Venezuelans (4 690).
Germany (18 425), Spain (10 580), France (10 035) and Italy (9 620) continued to receive the highest number of first-time asylum applicants, accounting for 70% of all first-time applicants in the EU.
The EU total rate of first-time asylum applicants in August 2024 was 15.4 per hundred thousand people. Compared with the population of each EU country (on 1 January 2024), the highest rates of first-time applicants were recorded in Greece (59.9), ahead of Ireland (31.5).
A total of 2 980 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum for the first time in the EU, with most of them coming from Syria (1 090), Afghanistan (360), Egypt (275) and Somalia (225).
Source dataset: migr_asyumactm
The EU country that received the highest number of asylum applications from unaccompanied minors was Germany (715), followed by Bulgaria (480), the Netherlands (440), Greece (365) and Belgium (230).
Source: Eurostat, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=ddn-20241120-1
