TIRANA, April 12 /ATA/ The Democratic Party MP, Dashnor Sula, said on Wednesday that “compared to previous years, applications for asylum have increased significantly.”

According to him, “16 thousand young people left Albania last year alone to cross the channel by dinghy to the UK.”

Sula said that the figures have been obtained from the Office of Immigration Statistics in the United Kingdom and according to him, “these 16 thousand young people are only those who have presented themselves in one of the refugee camps to seek asylum.”

“In 2021, the number of applicants from Albania was 5,147, while in the period 2013-2018 it was on average less than 3 thousand people per year. From 2003 to 2011, applications did not even reach 200 per year. The situation looks even more depressing given that 72% of the applicants, or 11.3 thousand young people are up to 29 years old. Accordingly, nearly 58% of asylum applications in the United Kingdom in 2022 belonged to the 18-29 age group. About 13.7% of the applications were made by children under 18 years old,” he said.

/sm/