Asylum requests to Portugal had a 64% increase
All in all, there were almost 1,500 asylum requests made to Portugal. Most of these requests were made by Asian citizens, followed by African and European citizens.
Asylum requests to Portugal had a 64% increase in 2016, in comparison to 2015. These data disclosed by the Immigration, Borders and Asylum Report show that this was the largest number registered in the last 15 years.
The document from the Immigration and Borders Service also states that in 2016 there was an “increase in the number of requests for international protection in comparison to the previous year (64%), ascending to 1,469 requests; this was the largest amount of requests made in the past 15 years”. According to the report, most of the asylum requests were presented by Asian citizens (642), followed by Africans (611) and Europeans (169).
From Asia, asylum was granted mostly to Syrian citizens (428), Iraq (117) and Pakistan (25); 84% of the European asylum requests came from Ukraine. As for the requests made by African citizens, the document highlights citizens from Eritrea (248), Guinea (52), Congo (51), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (51) and from Angola (30).
The report also discloses that 1,198 requests were made in Portugal (81.6%) and 271 were made in border posts (18.4%), highlighting that 67% of those asking for asylum in 2016 were males.
According to the Immigration and Borders Service, last year, 104 refugee status were granted to African and Asian citizens and 267 requested residency permits for humanitarian reasons, mainly coming from European countries (191), Asians (63) and Africans (10). In 2016, for humanitarian reasons, there were 106 more permits granted than in 2015.
The report also highlights that 24 asylum requests were made by unaccompanied minors. Most of them were aged between 16 and 17; 21 came from Africa.
