2 October 2015, 22:34 GMT
BRUSSELS (Sputnik) – The number of asylum applications registered last week is almost 11 percent higher than in the previous week, local news website 7sur7 reported on Sunday, citing sources from the Belgian Secretary of State for Asylum, Migration and Administrative Simplification office.
According to the website, the majority of the refugees who applied this week are from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. However, further analysis of the applications found that the number received from Iraqi and Syrian citizens has shown a decrease, while the share of Afghans has significantly grown.
Belgium, along with other EU states, is currently facing a migration crisis with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing violence and poverty in the Middle East and North Africa and heading for Europe.
Over 500,000 migrants have arrived in the European Union since the beginning of 2015, according to European Commission estimates.
