TIRANA, March 22 – An investigation of an Irish newspaper showed the number of asylum seekers at the European Union member countries.
It said that asylum seeker numbers rose 53 percent last year, with an EU average of 1.2.
For Ireland, Albania replaced Zimbabwe as the third highest nationality.
Overall across the EU, a total of 626,065 applications from asylum seekers were recorded last year — an annual rise of 44 percent.
One of the main reasons is the increase in refugees fleeing the war in Syria. Their numbers rose from 50,000 in 2013 to 123,000 last year, with around 60 percent of this figure seeking asylum in Germany and Sweden.
There has also been a steady increase in the number of Afghans and Kosovars seeking asylum in EU countries in recent years, averaging around 40,000 each in 2014.
European and also Albanian authorities have continuously called on common Albanians recently to stop going to EU member counties and seek for asylum as they will be turned back. Germany said that only during the first months this year there were about 1,400 asylum requests from Albania.
