Asylum applications to Netherlands plummet following fall of Assad regime

LONDON

The Netherlands saw record-low asylum applications in the first quarter of this year, largely attributed to the fall of Syria’s Assad regime, official data showed on Wednesday.

In the first quarter of 2025, over 4,500 individuals of various nationalities applied for asylum in the Netherlands, plummeting 37% from the previous quarter and approximately half the number compared to the same period last year, as reported by NL Times, citing Statistics Netherlands.

Syrian nationals still make up the largest group of asylum applicants during this period, accounting for 21% of the total.

However, their numbers have sharply declined since the fall of the Assad regime last December. Only 900 Syrians applied for asylum in the first quarter, marking a 68% drop from the same period in 2024, when over 2,900 Syrians sought refuge in the country.

More than two-thirds of asylum seekers were men, and three-quarters were under the age of 35. Additionally, a quarter of the applicants were children, according to Statistics Netherlands.

Conversely, the number of family reunification applications rose 14% to 3,700 in the first quarter compared to a year earlier. Over 81% of these requests originated from Syrian nationals.

Bashar al-Assad, Syria's leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia on Dec. 8, ending the regime of the Baath Party, which had been in power since 1963.