SA has been singled out in a UN report for skewed figures on asylum seekers. The UNHCR Global Trends report on displacement‚ released on Monday‚ showed that the number of asylum seekers in SA dropped by nearly 900‚000 in just one year. SA moved down to fourth in the world — behind Germany‚ the US and Turkey — for its asylum-seeker population‚ which was recorded at 218‚300 in the latest report‚ down from 1.1-million in 2015. The asylum seeker population is made up of people with pending claims for refugee status‚ and stood at 2.8-million globally at the end of last year. That was a decrease from 3.2-million in 2015‚ but the drop was mainly accounted for by "a sharp reduction in the asylum-seeker population reported by SA"‚ the report said. "Excluding data from SA‚ which has seen variations in numbers in 2015 and 2016 largely due to changes in statistical methodologies‚ there has clearly been a sustained increase in the global asylum-seeker population." Department of Home Affairs spok...
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