Geneva, March 24: The UN refugee chief on Tuesday dismissed fears of a surge in asylum seekers in rich countries as being based on a “myth”, after new data showed that asylum requests were stable last year.
“The notion that there is a flood of asylum seekers into richer countries is a myth,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.
“Despite what some populists claim, our data shows that the numbers have remained stable.”
Several EU countries have recently tightened entry conditions for asylum seekers, while the issue is also frequently at the centre of elections that have been marked by growing support for anti-immigration right wing political parties.
The latest UNHCR data showed that 377,200 people applied for asylum in 44 industrialised countries in Europe, North America and Asia in 2009.
Nearly half of the asylum seekers came from the Middle East and three quarters of them headed for Europe.
The UNHCR had reported a 12 percent surge in asylum applications in 2008 to 383,000, but that figure was based on 51 host countries.
The latest data also showed that Afghanistan overtook Iraq as the biggest source of asylum flows towards the West.
However, the figures for 2009 also revealed a significant disparity between different host regions, notably within Europe.
Nordic countries recorded a 13 percent increase in asylum seekers with 51,100 new applicants last year, the highest in six years, according to the UNHCR.
Nonetheless, in southern Europe the number of new asylum claims dropped by one third to 50,100, notably with a 42 percent drop in Italy, 40 percent decrease in Turkey and a one-fifth decrease in Greece.
Greece and Italy are two of the main points of entry into the European Union for would-be migrants and asylum seekers from war-torn countries in Africa and Central Asia who often cross the Mediterranean Sea in small boats.
Both countries last year clamped down what they often regard as illegal immigration.
The UNHCR reported a sharp surge in Afghans fleeing their war torn country.
They formed the biggest community of aslyum seekers in industralised nations last year, with 26,800 people, an increase of 45 percent, followed by Iraq (24,000) and Somalis (22,600).
Meanwhile, France and Britain on Tuesday launched a new police mission to catch Afghan migrants trying to cross the Channel hidden in the backs of lorries.
British and French officers will use the new base to coordinate their actions against illegal immigration at the northern French port of Calais, where thousands of lorries pass each day, some carrying migrants to Britain.
In September France closed a big migrant camp known as the Jungle and has since rounded up several migrants and sent them back to Afghanistan. Many other Afghans have fetched up homeless on the streets of Paris.
Watchdog: Racism on rise in Britain, politics to blame
Early March, a European rights watchdog said that racist attacks are on the rise in Britain, where both politicians and the tabloid press routinely disparage Roma gypsies, Muslims and migrants.
Race-linked offences in England and Wales jumped from 31,000 in 2003 to more than 38,000 five years on, according to a report from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) based on British government figures.
More than 13,000 race or discrimination cases were successfully prosecuted in 2007-2008, against 8,800 for the previous two years, said the commission, which is part of the pan-European Council of Europe rights body.
Asylum-seekers were often vulnerable to hasty decisions to reject their claims, unnecessary detention — and intense public hostility, the report said.
“Together with Muslims, migrants, Gypsies and Travellers, they are regularly presented in a negative light both in political discourse and in the media, especially the tabloid press,” it added.
Roma faced “some of the most severe levels of hostility and prejudice” in modern Britain.
But stop and search practices ordered under new anti-terror laws also “disproportionately” affected blacks, Muslims and other minority groups, ECRI said, urging Britain to boost the share of minorities in the force.
The watchdog acknowledged British authorities had toughened the legal framework for fighting racism and discrimination, and were working to promote racial equality in jobs and education, with school results already improving.
But overall, the ECRI report said “the tone of public debate continues to include some elements of racist and xenophobic discourse.”
Britain was not alone in being criticised by the Council of Europe.
Austria has adopted laws to combat discrimination but they are rarely applied, with blacks and Muslims most exposed to discrimination, ECRI said.
Employers in Austria can choose to sack foreign workers first, housing ads can discriminate against minorities, and minority children are left to fall by the wayside at school, ECRI wrote in a country report.
Like in Britain, ECRI accused some politicians and media of whipping up hostility towards asylum-seekers.
—Agencies