The asylumtrends for 2012 can be summarised as follows:

Less asylum applications

In 2012, 21.461 asylum applications were registered in Belgium (which corresponds to about 27.700 persons). This is a decrease of almost 16% compared to 2011 (25.479 cases). 

More subseqeunt asylum applications

The number of subsequent applications continued to increase and in 2012, 6.257 applications were no first asylum applications.

Countries of origin

In 2012, the main countries of origin of asylum applicants were the following: Afghanistan, Guinea, Russia, DR Congo and Kosovo. Compared to previous year, the number of asylum applications from DR Congo and Syria increased, while the number of applications from Iraq, Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo dropped significantly.

More decisions CGRS

The CGRS took 19.731 in 2012, which is a clear increase compared to previous year (16,828 CGRS asylum decisions).  In 3.038 cases the refugee states was granted, and in 1.381 cases there was a decision to grant subsidiary protection.  Due to an increase of the number of decisions, and a decrease  of new asylum applications the backlog of the CGRS decreased to 11.495 cases (compared to 15.343 cases on April 1, 2012) 

The full report of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons on the asylum statistics for 2012 can be found on the website of the CGRS