Turkish citizens filed a total of 55,000 asylum applications in EU countries, Switzerland and Norway in 2022, making Turks the third largest group of asylum seekers after Syrians and Afghans, Turkish Minute reported, citing data from the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA).
EUAA’s Asylum Trends 2022 revealed that a total of 966,000 asylum applications were filed in the EU countries, Switzerland and Norway in 2022, a 50 percent increase over 2021, when travel restrictions were in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Asylum applications from Turkish citizens in the European countries in 2022 doubled compared to 2021.
Syrian and Afghan citizens, who preceded Turkey in the number of applications, filed 132,000 and 129,000 asylum applications in the European countries, respectively.
Around 4 million Ukrainians who had to flee due to a war launched by Russia in February 2022, and took refuge in European countries have not been included these figures as they were given temporary protection status and did not have to file for asylum.
Thousands of people have fled Turkey due to a massive witch-hunt carried out by the Turkish government since a coup attempt in July 2016. Many have tried to flee illegally as the government had canceled the passports of thousands of people.
The EUAA, based in Malta, supports implementation of the Common European Asylum System by applying a bottom-up approach. Its aim is to ensure that individual asylum cases are dealt with in a coherent way by all member states.
EU+ refers to the 27 European Union member states plus Norway and Switzerland.