Some 32% of child asylum seekers are unaccompanied minors

In 2017, 225 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in Cyprus, making up 32.4% of all child asylum applications it received, official EU data showed on Wednesday.

There was also a 4.6% increase in the number of unaccompanied children applying for asylum status last year, compared to the 215 applications in 2016.

And some 4% of the child applicants in Cyprus were aged 14 or under while 64% of the total were males.

According to Eurostat, 105 came from Syria (46% of the total), 85 from Somalia (38%) and 15 from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (6%).

Last year, 31,400 asylum seekers applying for international protection in the European Union were considered to be unaccompanied minors.

This was nearly half the number recorded in 2016 when 63,200 unaccompanied minors were registered and almost one-third of the peak registered in 2015 (95,200).

In the EU, unaccompanied minors accounted for 15% of all asylum applicants aged less than 18.

The majority of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum were males (89%) and over two-thirds were aged 16 to 17.

Afghan (17%) continued to be the main citizenship of asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minors in the EU.

The highest number of asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minors was registered in Italy (with over 10,000 or 32% of all those registered in the EU), followed by Germany (29%), Greece (8%), the United Kingdom (7%), Austria (4%) as well as Sweden (4%) and the Netherlands (4%).

Together these seven countries accounted for nearly 90% of all asylum applicants considered to be unaccompanied minors registered in the EU. Among

The number of asylum seekers considered to be unaccompanied minors rose compared with the previous year in Italy (+66%) and increased slightly in Greece (+4%).

In contrast, decreases were recorded in Germany (-75%), Austria (-65%), UK(-31%), Sweden (-40%) and the Netherlands (-31%).