Over 2,600 minors sought asylum in Greece last year

More unaccompanied minors sought protection in Greece last year compared with the one before that, data published by the European Union's statistical agency on Friday show.

According to Eurostat, 2,640 children traveling without a parent or guardian applied for asylum in Greece in 2018 against 2,455 in 2017, putting the country near the top of the European Union member states with the largest number of applications, behind Germany (4,100), Italy (3,900) and the United Kingdom (2,900).

In total in 2018, 19,700 asylum seekers applying for international protection in EU were identified as unaccompanied minors, Eurostat reported. This was a drop of more than one-third compared with 2017 (31,395) and below the 2014 level (23,100), when the first increase was observed after remaining at a relatively constant level of around 12,000 per year between 2008 and 2013.