The statistics for May show the following trends:

• 1785 asylum applications were introduced in Belgium in May 2012, a slight increase (7.8%) compared to April 2012. The main reasons for this increase are the higher number of asylum applications from Afghanistan and the higher number of multiple asylum applications (28% of the total number of asylum applications.)
   
• The main countries of origin in May were Afghanistan (16.1% of the total number of applications), Guinea (8.6%), Kosovo (7.1%) Russia (5.8%), the Democratic Republic of Congo (5.3%) and Pakistan (4.1). Iraq, Cameroon, Albania (together with Armenia) and Macedonia complete the top 10 of the countries of origin.
   
• The CGRS took 1696 decisions in asylum applications in May: 255 decisions to recognize refugee status and 94 decisions to grant subsidiary protection status. During the first 5 months of 2011, the CGRS has taken 8433 decisions, which is 35% more than in the same period last year. With this figure, the CGRS confirms the trend of the increasing number of decisions in 2011, when almost 50% more decisions were taken by the CGRS than in 2010.

Note: these statistics concern files and not persons.

These statistics can be consulted on the website of the CGRS where the statistics of previous years are also available.