Europe's number of asylum applications from unaccompanied minors drops starter 2015 peak
The European Union, Norway and Switzerland received nearly 66,000 asylum applications from unaccompanied minor migrants in 2016, a decline of nearly 40% from 2015’s record total but still well above the total of prior years, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency.
From 2008 to 2016, the EU, Norway and Switzerland received some 274,000 total asylum applications from unaccompanied minors, or those younger than 18 applying without a parent or guardian. (Data are not available before 2008.) The annual number of unaccompanied minor applications remained relatively flat from 2008 to 2013 before nearly doubling to 25,000 in 2014. During the refugee surge in 2015, European countries received more than 104,000 applications from unaccompanied minors seeking asylum. Counting all age groups, the EU, Norway and Switzerland received more than 4.8 million first-time asylum applications from 2008 to 2016, with unaccompanied minors representing almost 6% of the total.
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