Those seeking asylum in EU decrease

BRUSSELS, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- European Union officials said Monday the number of people seeking asylum in Europe dropped nearly 50 percent in the past five years.

Figures from the EU statistics office, Eurostat, indicate the number of asylum seekers is in steady decline since the 1990's.

France led member states with the most asylum applications, but also posted some of the most substantial declines in 2006.

Slovenia, Latvia, Cyprus, Austria and France had the most significant drops, the EU Observer reports.

Conversely, asylum applications in Cyprus and Malta were among the highest of all EU member states. The Eurostat survey suggests this is primarily due to geographic transportation routes of asylum seekers.

The numbers of asylum seekers spiked a few years after Germany's reunification and again in 1996 following the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

The report notes that most asylum seekers came from Iraq, Russia, and Serbia and Montenegro.