Page 47 - Syrians in Türkiye - Special Report

GRAND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF TÜRKİYE THE OMBUDSMAN INSTITUTION

According to UNHCR data, our country currently hosts almost two-thirds of the total
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5,523,288 people who have had to escape from Syria. According to the same data,
997,552 of the remaining Syrians are registered in Lebanon, 655,624 in Jordan, 247,057
in Iraq, 126,688 in Egypt, and 30,104 in other parts of North Africa. If those who are
still waiting to register are added to those numbers, then the size of the tragedy that the
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Syrians are experiencing can be understood. Similarly, according to UNHCR data, only
17% of the 65.6 million ‘forcibly displaced persons’ in the world are living in European
countries, and the majority are living in developing countries or in extremely poor
countries. In addition to this, it is striking that as of October 2017 there were only
996,204 asylum requests submitted to European countries among the total 5,523,288
registered Syrians who have fled Syria since April 2011. According to European
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Statistics Office data rreceived from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during the 2010-
2016 period, only 816,000 Syrian asylum applications were accepted by European
countries, and also about 38,000 applicants were accepted by Canada, 10,000 by the
United States and more than 2,000 by Australia. The distribution of Syrians accepted as
asylum seekers in European countries is given in the table below in detail:

Table 2: Total number of Syrians whose asylum requests were accepted in EU countries in 2010-2016
TOTAL NUMBER OF SYRIANS WHOSE
EU COUNTRIES ASYLUM REQUESTS WERE ACCEPTED
BETWEEN 2010 - 2016
GERMANY 456.000
SWEDEN 110.000
HUNGARY 76.000
AUSTRIA 39.000
HOLLAND 32.000
GREECE 19.000
BULGARIA 18.000
BELGIUM 17.000
NORWAY 14.000
(Source: Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs note using EUROSTAT figures)

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UNHCR, “Situations.” UNHCR Türkiye, “Information Documents and Tables” (accessed February 2, 2018);
available from http://www.unhcr.org/tr/bilgi-dokumanlari-ve-tablolar.
28 UNHCR, “Figures at a Glance” (accessed February 2, 2018); available from http://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-
a-glance.html and “Situations” (accessed February 2, 2018); available from http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/
regional.php.
29 For UNHCR official data, see http://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html and http://data.unhcr.org/
syrianrefugees/regional.php; date accessed: 02/02/2018.
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Ministry of Foreign Affairs note dated January 9, 2017

SYRIANS IN TÜRKİYE SPECIAL REPORT 47