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Statement concerning recent claims in the media about asylum applications
London, Apr 27 (UNHCR) - Following the recent launch of the UNHCR report "The State of the World's Refugees: Human Displacement in the Displacement in the New Millennium", UNHCR wishes to clear up some factually incorrect claims that appeared in some media outlets.
Out of the total number of people who claimed asylum worldwide over 2001-2004, only one in 16 (6.3 percent) sought asylum in the UK.
In exaggerating the proportion of claims made in the United Kingdom, The Daily Mail ("How one-tenth of all asylum seekers find a home in Britain" - 19/04/06) and The Daily Express ("One in eight of all asylum seekers lands in Britain" 20/04/06) ignore the enormous burden faced by poor, developing countries that shelter the vast majority of the world's dispossessed.
A declining number of conflicts worldwide has seen the number of refugees and people seeking asylum plummet since 2002. Claims by people seeking asylum in the UK are back at levels not seen since 1994, while some other European countries are recording their lowest figures in a quarter century.
Amongst industrialised countries, that shelter only a small fraction of the world's refugees and people seeking asylum, in 2005 the UK received some one in 11 asylum claimants, and stands in third place, behind France and the USA.
The UN Refugee Agency is saddened that high-profile stories failed to correctly represent the actual number of refugees and people seeking asylum and hopes that the publications concerned will consider rectifying this misrepresentation by publishing a clarification at its earliest convenience."
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