(National-UAE) The Home Office plans to fast-track thousands of asylum cases from a handful of countries, including Syria and Yemen, as the backlog of people waiting for an initial decision climbs to almost 161,000.
About 12,000 asylum seekers from nations that have a grant rate in the UK of more than 95 per cent —Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Libya and Yemen — will be eligible under the policy.
Figures released on Thursday showed that 160,919 people were waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of December 2022.
That was up 60 per cent from 100,564 compared with the year before, and the highest figure since current records began in 2010.
