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Lankans among those seeking Swiss asylum

21 Jul 2015 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Applications from Sri Lanka, Eritrea, Syria and Somalia seeking asylum in Switzerland had increased during the first six months of this year, Swiss media reported.

It said almost 12,000 applications had been lodged and Eritreans were accounting for more than half of the applications followed by Somalia, Sri Lanka and Syria.

The latest statistics from the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) show 11,873 applications between January and the end of June – up 16 per cent on the same period last year.

More people had requested asylum in the second quarter than the first, with June registering a bumper 3,805 applications.

The SEM said the increase in the second quarter was mainly due to the higher number of Eritreans arriving from southern Italy.

But it pointed out that the increase was modest in European terms. The Swiss share of asylum requests lodged in Europe had more than halved since 2012.

The State Secretariat for Migration expects asylum requests to reach around 29,000 by the end of this year. Last year the total was just under 24,000.

Pius Betschart, Deputy Director of the Federal Office for Migration told the Schweiz am Sonntag newspaper online that in the first five months of this year asylum requests were under last year’s levels.

“Then they rose suddenly, and now we have 1,000 requests a week,” he said.

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Lankans among those seeking Swiss asylum

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