ROME, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- Italy repatriated almost 10 percent of asylum seekers last year, data released Monday by the European Commission showed.
The latest edition of the Commission's Atlas of Migration showed that Italy repatriated 2,790 out of 28,185 migrants whose asylum requests were turned down. Meanwhile, the average repatriation rate in the European Union (EU) as a whole was 17 percent.
EU data showed that the bloc received a total of 884,985 new asylum applications for international protection in 2022, up by nearly 65 percent from the previous year. More than half of all asylum requests in the bloc were rejected last year.
The 2022 repatriation rate in Italy is slightly higher than the previous year (9 percent), but remains lower than 2020 (12 percent) and significantly below 2019 (24 percent).
Among the EU member states, Italy has taken a more hardline stance in curbing the number of migrant arrivals.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has estimated that this year, there were over 153,530 sea arrivals of migrants to Italy through Sunday, marking the highest total since 2016. ■
