” “Over the last five years, the total number of claims for asylum sent to industrialised countries has been cut by half. This is the result of the report, which was published today by the High Commission for Refugees (Unhcr), which tells that, for the fourth year on end, in 2005 the number of claims for asylum submitted to 50 industrialised countries has dramatically decreased, reaching its lowest level in the last twenty years. “These figures”, stated the High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, “show that in the industrialised countries speaking of asylum as of an increasing problem is a statement that does not reflect the truth. These countries should ask themselves, instead, whether by laying even stricter constraints on the asylum-seekers they are not closing their doors to men, women and children who are escaping from persecution”. Since 2001, the number of claims for asylum submitted to 50 industrialised countries has decreased by 49%; in 2005, 336 thousand applications were submitted, i.e. 15% less than the previous year. In the 25 EU member states, as well as in the whole of the European continent, one of the most striking figures of the report is that the number of claims for asylum submitted in 2005 is the lowest since 1988. Despite such 15% fall, France was the country that last year received the highest number of claims for asylum, with an estimated number of approximately 502 applications, followed by the United States with 48 thousand, the United Kingdom with 30,500 and Germany, the country which for most of the Eighties and Nineties has received the highest number of applications, with 28,900. Austria comes fifth, with 22,500 applications. ” “
