Huge spike in asylum approval rate in Denmark

88 percent of asylum-seekers approved during the first seven months of 2015

The asylum approval rate has increased significantly in 2015, according to new figures from the immigration service Udlændingestyrelsen.

The figures reveal that 88 percent of asylum-seekers have been granted asylum in Denmark during the first seven months of this year, compared to 74 percent last year.

“First of all, I think it has something to do with who is coming,” Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, a research director at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, told DR Nyheder.

“They are all in groups who have close to a 100 percent chance of being granted asylum, and that is reflected by these approval processes. They are who we call ‘prima facie refugees’ – people who are in desperate need of protection and asylum.”

READ MORE: Humanitarian head invites asylum-seekers to seek Denmark

Syrians and Eritreans
The vast majority of the asylum-seekers hail from Syria. Some 2,142 out of the 5,174 asylum seekers came from the war-torn nation.

Eritrea supplied the next-largest group of asylum seekers with 801, followed by people who were ‘stateless’ – such as Palestinians – with 347.

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