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Belgium has the highest number of Palestinian asylum seekers in the entire EU

by AI | 16.Jul 2024 | Europe in brief AI

In no other country in the European Union do so many Palestinians apply for asylum as in Belgium. It is not clear why that is.

A tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. - Photo: Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua News

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Brussels – Nowhere in the European Union have more Palestinians applied for asylum this year than in Belgium. Palestinians have been the largest group of asylum seekers since March. This is evident from figures from the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGVS).

In June, 301 Palestinians applied for asylum in Belgium for the first time. In March this year, Palestinians topped the list for the first time since the war in Gaza, when 417 Palestinians arrived in our country.

In total, from January to June this year, 2,506 Palestinians have sought protection in Belgium. In all of 2023, there were 3,249 applications. Even within the total number of 17,853 asylum applications, Palestinians are the largest group.

It is unclear why our country is particularly popular with Palestinians. “We simply do not know,” says Olivier Brasseur, spokesman for the CGVS. About 90 percent of the Palestinians come from Gaza. This is also striking because leaving Gaza is particularly difficult.

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