Compared to the same period last year (893), that is an increase of 318 people.

Based on the numbers from the report by the department of immigration that came out this week, it is likely that more people will arrive in the second half of 2017 than in 2016.

The summer has begun and the weather conditions make it less dangerous for people trying to make the perilous journey.

Syrians are still the biggest group

With the war in Syria showing no signs of abating, Syrians are still the biggest group of asylum seekers in Luxembourg.

For 2016, they were the biggest group with a total of 289 people, and in 2017 there have already been 200 people seeking refuge in Luxembourg.

There has been a significant decrease of people from Iraq (161 applicants in 2016, 38 in January-June 2017). There has been a substantial shift in arrival from the Balkan states: arrivals from Kosovo have dropped by half compared to the same period a year ago (97 in 2016, 50 in 2017), while applications from Serbia have increased from 22 in 2016 to 142 in 2017. Asylum applications from Bosnia-Herzegovina have more or less stabilised, and those from Albania have increased only slightly.

Increases can be noted in people seeking asylum from the Maghreb (Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians) but also from Georgia, Ukraine and Russia.

Returns under Dublin

The common European asylum system has come significantly under strain since the beginning of the refugee and migration crisis.

The weakness of the Dublin system is that it establishes the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application based primarily on the first point of irregular entry.

It seems likely that this year, the numbers of asylum seekers to be sent away from Luxembourg for reasons of first point of irregular entry will double that of 2016. From January to June 2017, the number has almost reached the total for the whole year of 2016.

Germany, the Netherlands and Italy are the countries to which Luxembourg has returned asylum seekers.

More decisions taken

The significant increase in staff at the department of immigration has meant that the backlog of pending applications is slowly decreasing. There were still 386 cases pending from 2015, and 694 from 2016, which have now been cleared.

In 2016, a total of 764 decisions granted the status of refugee, while in the first six months of 2017, 475 decisions were favourable. The status of subsidiary protection has been granted to 8 applicants in 2017 so far. The total number of refused applications (normal and accelerated procedure) stood at 438 in 2016, and for this year there have been 351 refusals.

Implicit withdrawals of applications amounted to 861 in 2017, and 391 in 2016.