TIRANA, June 11 – The number of new asylum seekers in the European Union has increased considerably in the first months of 2019, the DPA news agency reported on Tuesday.
At the same time, the number of asylum applications has increased from countries whose citizens enter the Schengen area without a visa.
Among them the DPA lists countries such as Venezuela, Colombia, Georgia and Albania.
First-time applications from West Balkan countries such as Albania and Caucuses nations such as Georgia were up while the proportion of applications from people from countries whose citizens don’t require a visa to travel in the Schengen zone reportedly increased from roughly 20 percent to about 25 percent.
Venezuela, severely hit by the economic crisis, was ranked in March after Syria and before Afghanistan among the main countries from where asylum seekers sought help.
According to the report by ‘Funke Medien-Gruppe’, the number of asylum seekers from Venezuela has increased by 121 percent in the four months of this year.
