GENEVA, Switzerland, June 4 (UPI) -- The U.N. refugee agency said Friday the number of asylum-seekers reaching the world's developed countries fell again in the first three months of this year.
The office of the Geneva-based U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said it continues a downward trend documented over the past few years.
The U.N. agency said a "spectacular decline" in the number of Iraqis, Afghans and Russians -- who are overwhelmingly Chechens -- seeking asylum led the way for a global fall in asylum claims.
Between Jan. 1 and March 31 this year, there were 92,679 applications for asylum in the industrialized world -- a 16 per cent drop on the previous quarter and more than 25 per cent below the same quarter last year, it said.
The latest data maintains a steady trend that began in 2002. Last year, asylum-seeker numbers had already fallen to their lowest levels since 1997.
UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters, "This is the eighth quarter out of the last 10 during which the number of asylum applications has decreased."
