A painting by children staying at the Pasture asylum centre in Balerna in southern Switzerland, October 2, 2020.
Keystone / Francesca Agosta
The number of asylum requests in Switzerland this year is due to surpass the pre-Covid level, the authorities say. Further increases are expected in the coming years.
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SRF/sb
Last year, asylum requests fell by almost a quarter to 11,041 owing to the pandemic and border restrictions. In 2019 there were 14,269 requests.
As border controls are eased, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) expects the number of applications to rise to around 15,000 in 2021, and for further increases over the next few years.
“We can’t give any specific figures yet, but we expect an increase in applications,” Lukas Rieder, SEM spokesperson, told Swiss public television, SRF, on Wednesday.
Over the past 12 months requests have mainly come from people from Afghanistan, Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, Iraq and Syria. The SEM now expects a rise in applications, especially from North and West African countries.
The SEM says financial pressures related to the pandemic are pushing many Africans to emigrate. As soon as Covid-19 measures are further lifted in countries of origin and along migration routes, there will be an increase in migration to Europe, especially from 2022 onwards, it told SRF.
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Covid-19 pandemic leads to 23% drop in asylum requests
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The number of asylum requests in Switzerland fell by almost a quarter (23%) to 11,041 people last year, according to annual statistics.
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The head of the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), Mario Gattiker, told the newspaper BlickExternal link on Monday that the drop in applications had saved his office CHF160 million ($181 million) last year. Many countries, including Switzerland, shut down or tightened their borders in 2020 to try and contain the spread of the virus. Transport…
Asylum seeker requests in Switzerland hit 12-year low
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Most asylum seekers (2,899) came from Eritrea, with Afghanistan (1,397), Turkey (1,287) and Syria (1,100) also featuring prominently among applicants. In March of last year, Switzerland introduced new laws dealing with asylum seekers, speeding up the majority of requests from 400 days to 140 days. Most of the simpler asylum cases are now dealt with…
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