Not Welcome: Finland Denies Asylum to About 60% of Refugees in 2015, 2016

The Finnish Immigration Service has processed 25,000 asylum applications in 2015 and 2016, refusing to grant asylum to about 60 percent of refugees, the service said in a press release Thursday.

MURMANSK (Sputnik) — Most applicants during the period of 2015-16 are said to be from Iraq, with the subsequent largest numbers of asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria.

"During last year and this year, about 9,000 applicants have received a negative asylum decision and about 6,000 [received] a positive decision," the press release read.

According to the release, about 14,000 asylum seekers are still waiting for a decision, which the Immigration Service pledges to make by the end of this year.

Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their crisis-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa to escape violence and poverty in stable EU states, such as Finland. According to the Finnish Interior Ministry, a total of 32,476 asylum seekers entered the country in 2015.

In 2015, Finland received 32,500 refugees, most of them – 20,485 — came from Iraq.