Nearly one million people sought asylum in Europe last year—not including the more than four million from Ukraine—as conditions in poor countries worsened and food insecurity increased. 

Switzerland and Norway saw some of the biggest increases in applicants, in what has been called “dimensions not seen in Europe since the Second World War.” The number is up by about half from 2021 and the most since 2016.

“The largest groups of asylum applicants were Syrians, Afghans, Turks, Venezuelans, and Colombians. The latter three, as for many other citizenships, applied in record numbers,” the European Union Agency for Asylum said. Syrians (132,000) and Afghans (129,000) were by far the largest groups.

In 2016, 1.2 million people applied for asylum due to conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa. Last year, the increase was blamed on the easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions, food insecurity, and conflicts.

Ukrainians were able to obtain temporary protection and did not have to undergo an asylum procedure,  but the reception systems of EU countries have come under high pressure and asylum authorities still needed to cope with increasing numbers of applicants. 

The agency said about 885,000 applicants last year entered the system for the first time and was up by two-thirds from 2021 “when repeated applications in the same EU+ country had accounted for a relatively high share.” 

“Some 80,000 repeated applications were received in 2022, a tenth less than in 2021 but nevertheless the second most since at least 2014. Some 43,000 applicants claimed to be unaccompanied minors, the most since 2015 but still equivalent to 4 percent of all applicants, in line with recent years,” the agency said. 

TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has reported extensively on increasing poverty levels across the world due to COVID-19 lockdowns that have had an incalculable impact on the global economy and the poor. 

The lack of diplomacy and sanctions tied to the Ukraine War has just exacerbated these problems. (See “UKRAINIAN REFUGEES FLOODING EUROPE: POPULIST PARTY SURGE NEXT” 6 Dec 2022, “AS UKRAINE WAR RAGES, REFUGEE CRISIS IN EUROPE WORSENS” 29 Nov 2022, and “SPOTLIGHT: NEW WORLD DISORDER, TOP TREND OF 2020 KEEPS SPREADING” 24 Jan 2023.) 

TREND FORECAST: Again this is old news to Trend Journal subscribers. 

A year before the COVID War was launched in January 2020 the world was descending into the New World Disorder.

Back in 2019, protests raged from South America to Africa, from the Middle East to Asia to Europe, with millions taking to the streets in numbers never seen before fighting against government control, corruption, income inequality, poverty, violence, and crime.

And politicians across the globe were fighting against angry mobs who wanted to overthrow them. Then, suddenly, when the COVID War broke out during the Chinese Lunar New Year 2020, governments locked down their nations and locked down the protests.

In 2021, the uprisings and revolutions that were sweeping the world before the COVID War were still repressed with draconian COVID lockdown mandates. And, the tighter the lockdowns, billions of people sunk deeper into economic despair.

We had forecast the protests would escalate into civil wars and civil wars would spread to regional wars, as citizens by the millions flee their nations for neighboring safe-havens.