As a year ago, Iraq ranked first in the number of people wishing to leave the country. In the first six months of this year, the number of Iraqis who applied for asylum reached almost 20,000 people. This is significantly higher than the similar figure for the end of 2006. At that time, 13,600 asylum applications from Iraqis were registered in 36 developed countries. According to the report, if this trend continues in the future, the level of Iraqi refugees by the end of the year could reach record levels seen in 2000-2002. At that time, the average annual number of refugees was 40,000-50,000 people.
The most attractive country for Iraqi citizens was Sweden. In the first half of the year, 9,300 Iraqis applied for refugee status to Swedish authorities. In second place in popularity is Greece, where 3,500 asylum applications were registered. In total, 2.2 million Iraqis currently live outside their homeland, mainly in Syria and Lebanon (corresponding data for these countries are not included in the statistics of developed countries).
In second place in the number of people who wanted to leave the country was China. In the first six months of 2007, about 8,600 people filed asylum applications. Third place was taken by Pakistan, where 7,300 people wanted to leave. Fourth place was Serbia and Montenegro (still counted together) – 7,200 people.
According to the annual report, Russia ranked fifth in the world in the first half of 2007 in terms of the number of residents who want to obtain asylum abroad – 6,500 people. In 2006, 15,700 Russians applied for asylum in developed countries, which in turn was only a third of the figure recorded in 2005.
As for the most attractive countries for refugees, the first line in the list is occupied by the United States. In the first six months of this year, US authorities have already received almost 27,000 asylum applications. For comparison: in all of 2006, there were 50,000 such requests. Following the United States is Sweden (17,700 applications), Greece (almost 15,000), France (14,000). Also the most popular countries based on the first six months are the United Kingdom (12,700 applications), Canada (11,400), Germany (8,200), Austria (5,700).