Asylum in Germany

The European Union's statistics agency says more than 300,000 people were granted asylum within the bloc last year, a drop of almost 40 percent from 2017.
Eurostat said Thursday that around 333,400 people were deemed eligible for international protection, most of them Syrians, Afghans or Iraqis fleeing conflict or persecution.

The Kosovo parliament met on Thursday to hold a special session on the exodus of young people, which deputies warned was having a highly damaging effect on the country's economy and future. The MPs were due to vote a resolution on the subject that night.

Only seven of 1,500 refugees that Greece agreed to take back from Germany as part of a bilateral agreement in August have been returned, according to data from the German Interior Ministry.

The deal concerned refugees in Germany who had originally applied for asylum in Greece.

German authorities reported a 15 percent drop in asylum applications in January compared to the same month of the previous year, the Associated Press reported.

Young male refugees in Germany got the blame on Wednesday for most of a two-year increase in violent crime, adding fuel to the country's political debate over migrants, according to Reuters. 

Violent crime rose by about 10 percent in 2015 and 2016, a study showed. It attributed more than 90 percent of that to young male refugees.

Hundreds of Syrian refugees face more uncertainty - albeit of a more positive nature - following two separate recent decisions by asylum appeals committees ruling that Turkey cannot be deemed a safe third country.

The number of Turks seeking asylum in Germany is up sharply this year and has been rising steadily since last year's failed coup attempt, German government data showed on Sept. 18.

Germany's immigration authority has rejected more than 5,000 asylum applications filed by Turkish citizens, local media reported on Sept. 13. 

German daily Tagesspiegel reported that the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) had ruled on 8,547 asylum applications in 2017 filed by Turkish citizens, and rejected 5,040 of them.        

Hundreds of Turkish civil servants have filed a request for asylum in Germany, according to data from the German Ministry of Interior in August this year, quoted by Spiegel.

The documents were filed after an attempted coup in July last year. Thousands of civil servants were sacked and arrested because of suspicion of ties with the organization led by preacher Fetullah Gullen.

German police have arrested a 17-year-old asylum-seeker on suspicion of planning a suicide attack in Berlin.

He was detained in the village of Gerswalde, 60 miles north-east of the German capital, after allegedly telling family members “he had joined the jihad”.

He sent a farewell message to his family last week, said police in the state of Brandenburg on Tuesday.