Half of Netherlands 52,000 asylum seekers are Syrian

Half of the 52,500 asylum seekers that were registered by the Immigration and Naturalization in the Netherlands this year are from Syria - 18 thousand of the Syrians are asylum seekers and more than 8 thousand are people joining a family member already in the Netherlands, according to figures released by Statistics Netherlands on Wednesday. In November of this year 7,300 asylum seekers and reunited family members were registered in the Netherlands. That is significantly less than the 8,400 in September and 11,700 in October. This brings the total number of asylum seekers registered in the Netherlands in 2015 up to 52,500 at the end of November. Almost exactly half of the asylum seekers - 26,150 - are Syrians fleeing from the civil war in their country. The second largest group is made up of Eritreans - 8,010. The rest are stateless, Iraqi, Afghan, Iranian, Albanian, Kosovo, Ukrainian or from Serbia.