The 27 member states of the European Union granted protection to 78 800 asylum seekers in 2009, a total of 3700 more than the previous years, according to EU figures released ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20.

According to EU statistics office Eurostat, the largest groups of beneficiaries of protection status1 in the EU27 were citizens of Somalia (13 400 people or 17 per cent of the total number granted protection status), Iraq (13 100 or 17 per cent) and Afghanistan (7100 or  nine per cent).

In 2009, more than 25 per cent of asylum decisions in EU states at the first instance resulted in protection status, Eurostat said.
 
In 2009, 317 500 decisions on asylum applications were made in the EU27, of which 228 600 were first instance decisions and 88 900 final decisions on appeal.
 
Decisions made at the first instance resulted in 61 700 people being granted protection status, while a further 17 100 received protection status on appeal.
 
The rate of recognition of asylum applicants, i.e. the share of positive decisions in the total number of decisions, was 27 per cent for first instance decisions and 19 per cent for final decisions on appeal.

Of the 78 800 people who were granted protection status, 39 300 were granted refugee status, 29 900 subsidiary protection and 9600 authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons, according to Eurostat.
 
"It should be noted that, while both refugee and subsidiary protection status are defined by EU law, humanitarian status is granted on the basis of national legislation relating to international protection," Eurostat said.
 
More than three quarters of grants of protection status in the EU27 were made in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands.
 
In 2009, the highest number of people granted protection status was in the UK (12 500), followed by Germany (12 100), France (10 400), Sweden (9100), Italy (8600) and the Netherlands (8100).
 
These EU member states accounted for more than three quarters of all those granted protection status in the EU27, Eurostat said.
 
Bulgaria made 280 "positive decisions", in the official terminology, on asylum applications in 2009.
 
The rate of recognition varied considerably among EU member states, which is partly due to the differing citizenships of applicants in each member state, Eurostat said.
 
The highest rates of recognition in the first instance were recorded in Malta (66 per cent), Slovakia (56 per cent), Portugal (51 per cent), the Netherlands and Denmark (both 48 per cent), and the lowest in Greece (one per cent), Ireland (four per cent), Spain (eight per cent), France (14 per cent) and Slovenia (15 per cent).
 
Somalis were the single largest group of people granted protection status in the EU27.
 
Of the 13 400 Somalis granted protection status in the EU27, 4000 were recorded in Sweden, 3600 in the Netherlands, 2400 in Italy and 1400 in Malta.
 
Of the 13 100 Iraqis granted protection, 6200 were registered in Germany, 1900 in the Netherlands and 1500 in Sweden, and of the 7100 Afghans, 1800 were in the UK and 1200 each in Germany and Austria.
 
Eurostat also issued a report on what it termed the "characteristics" of asylum seekers in the EU27 in 2009, highlighting that minors accounted for 60 500 of the applicants, of which 12 200 were unaccompanied.
 
Separately, a new United Nations report said that with major conflicts in Afghanistan and Somalia among those showing no signs of being resolved, the number of refugees voluntarily returning to their home countries in 2009 plummeted to their lowest levels in 20 years.

Only 251 000 refugees – out of a global total of 15.2 million – repatriated in 2009, compared to an average of 500 000 annually for the past 10 years, the UN News Centre said.
 
Two thirds of refugees come under the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with the rest falling under the responsibility of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

"Conflicts that had appeared to be ending or were on their way to being resolved, such as in southern Sudan or in Iraq, are stagnating," High Commissioner António Guterres said.

More than 5.5 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate, he said, were in a protracted conflict situation.

"Already a majority of the world’s refugees have been living as refugees for five years or more," Guterres said. "Inevitably, that proportion will grow – if fewer refugees are able to go home."

The agency’s annual Global Trends report found that more than 43 million people were forcibly displaced around the world at the end of last year, making it the highest number of people uprooted by conflict and persecution since the mid-1990s.

It also noted that the number of people displaced internally by clashes grew by four per cent to 27 million at the end of 2009, mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Pakistan and Somalia.

Increasingly refugees are living in cities in the developing world, contrary to the notion that they are inundating industrialized notions, the report said.

Also on the rise is the number of new individual asylum claims, which grew last year to nearly a million.

Receiving more than 222 000 new claims in 2009, South Africa was the single largest asylum destination.

The report also covers the world’s 6.6 million stateless people, although unofficial estimates range as high as 12 million.

UNHCR, which protects, assists and seeks solutions for refugees, also helps the uprooted start new lives in other nations, usually in the developed world, the UN News Centre said.

Last year, the agency submitted a record 128 000 people for resettlement in third countries, the highest in 16 years.

By the end of 2009,  a total of 112 400 refugees were admitted for resettlement in 19 countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia. Most of those relocated were from Myanmar, Iraq and Bhutan.

In the past decade, at least 1.3 million refugees have been naturalised, mostly in the US.