Spain’s 2020 asylum requests led by Venezuelans and Colombians

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With 28,375 and 27,586 requests, respectively, Venezuelans and Colombians topped the list of asylum seekers in Spain in 2020, a year in which 4,359 refugee statuses were granted and 88,826 applications for international protection were registered.

The data are reflected in the Asylum and Refugee Office’s 2020 Activity Report, published Thursday by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior which shows a 25% drop in asylum applications compared to 2019 during a pandemic year and with restriction on movement.

Of the over 116,000 international protection cases processed, the annual balance shows that 4,359 refugee statuses were favorably decided, 1,401 requests for subsidiary protection and more than 45,000 for humanitarian reasons.

The Spanish Ministry emphasizes the increase in the number of refugee statuses granted, representing 162% of favorably resolved requests in 2019 and 7 times the 2018 figures.

On the other hand, there was a 10.7% reduction in subsidiary protection granted, which is offered to people whose return to their country of origin could cause them serious harm despite not meeting the requirements to be recognized as refugees.

The report also includes the 45,262 residence permits granted for humanitarian reasons, 28.4% more than in the previous year. In addition, Spain processed 3,601 statelessness cases – of people who lack nationality -, double the figure recorded in 2019.

The published data show that Spain ranked 3rd in the European Union in number of applications, behind Germany and France.

After Venezuela (28,375) and Colombia (27,586), the following 3 countries with the highest number of applications were Honduras (5,536), Peru (5,160) and Nicaragua (3,749).

The sum of applications originating from these 5 Latin American nationalities accounted for almost 80% of the total submitted in Spain, while for Germany the main origins were Syria and Afghanistan, and African countries for France.

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