Five infographics to show impact of Taliban takeover on Europe
A year ago the Taliban swept back into power in Afghanistan, triggering a mass exodus of Afghans fearing their lives would be worse under the country's new rulers.
The number of Afghans seeking asylum in the European Union (EU) more than doubled the month after the Taliban's takeover on 15 August 2021, compared with July's figures.
That's according to data from Eurostat.
Some 6,500 Afghans applied for asylum in the EU in July 2021, one month before the takeover. This leapt to around 14,400 Afghans making applications in September.
Despite starting to drop in the first months of 2022, the number of Afghan nationals applying for asylum was still well above that of spring last year.
To better contextualise how the US withdrawal and subsequent Taliban power grab impacted Afghan migration to Europe, we need to compare 2021/22 with previous years.
Last year, the number of Afghan nationals applying for asylum in Europe more than doubled compared with the preceding 12 months.
But it is still far fewer than applications in 2015 and 2016 when Afghans -- amid ongoing instability at home and a resurgent Taliban -- joined hundreds of thousands of Syrians in coming to Europe. Over those two years, more than 360,000 Afghans requested asylum in the EU.
Looking at where this recent influx of Afghan nationals has sought asylum in Europe is telling.
Greater numbers applied for asylum in wealthy western EU countries, with Germany taking approximately one-third of the bloc's total (23,940) over the period from August last year -- when the Taliban seized Kabul -- and April, the latest month for which Eurostat has data.
The second most popular destination was France, which received 13,730 first-time applications over the same time period.
But
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