More people applied for asylum in Germany last year than at any time since 2016, according to the annual statistics published by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) on Wednesday.

A total of 217,774 people applied for asylum in Germany for the first time between the beginning of January and the end of December, which was almost 47% more than in the previous year.

Most of the people seeking asylum last year came from Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey and Iraq.

According to the data, 24,791 of these first-time applications concerned children under the age of 1 born in Germany.

The approximately 1 million war refugees from Ukraine who found refuge in Germany last year did not have to apply for asylum, but received immediate temporary protection on the basis of an EU directive.

“We have taken numerous measures to manage and regulate migration to Germany more strongly,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.

In 2016, the number of requests for asylum had reached a peak with 722,370 initial applications. In the following years, the number of asylum seekers fell continuously.

The fact that it rose again in 2021 was, according to experts, partly due to catch-up effects as a result of the strict travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Source: dpa/MIA