Over 54,000 asylum applications breaks record set in Yugoslav Wars

The total number of asylum requests the Netherlands received in 2015 reached 54 thousand in November, the Ministry of Security and Justice announced, according to NOS. This means that 2015 officially beats the previous record year for asylum requests - 1994 when the Netherlands received more than 53 thousand asylum requests, mainly people fleeing from the war in former Yugoslavia, according to figures from Statistics Netherlands. Most of the current asylum requests are from Syria - 26,170 - followed by Eritrea with 8,050 requests and Palestine with 4,580 requests. The Immigration and Naturalization Service expects that the number of asylum requests will still increase with several thousand this year. Last week some 1,100 people asked for asylum in the Netherlands.