EASO publishes the COI report "Syria – Security situation"

Today, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) published the 2020 update to the Country of Origin Information (COI) report “Syria – Security situation“. This report is part of a series of Syria reports produced in 2019-2020. These reports cover actors of protection, internal mobility, key socio-economic indicators, and targeting of individuals. The reports provide information relevant for international protection status determination for Syrian applicants for international protection, and will be used in the development of a country guidance note on Syria.

In February 2020, asylum applications lodged in the EU+ by Syrians decreased to some 6 460, compared to almost 8 000 in January. Still, Syrians remained the top citizenship of origin, lodging around one in 10 applications in the EU+ overall. In March, just some 4 200 applications were lodged by Syrians. The number of first-instance decisions (5 904) issued to Syrian nationals was slightly above January levels (+5 %); in March, however, they were issued the most decisions (7 476), such that the outflow (case closures) was far more than the inflow (applications lodged), after the opposite occurred for several months in a row. Thus, at the end of March there was a small decrease in the number of cases awaiting a decision at first instance (50 220, down by some 2 900), previously increasing for seven consecutive months.

Around 81 % of Syrians were granted some form of international protection in the first quarter of 2020. This number was slightly lower than the recognition rate in the previous quarter (84 %), but still the highest among all citizenships applying for asylum in the EU+.

The report, EASO COI Report: Syria – Security situation (2020 update), analyses the security situation in Syria, focussing in particular on the situation of the civilian population. It provides an overview of the armed conflicts in Syria, information on the main parties to the conflict and a governorate-level description of the security situation. The reference period is 2019 and the first two months of 2020.

The report was drafted by the EASO COI Sector together with researchers from the Swedish Migration Agency, Country of Origin Information, Section for Information Analysis, in accordance with the EASO COI Report Methodology. The report was reviewed by the Netherlands, Office for Country Information and Language Analysis. Additionally, ACCORD, the Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation, conducted an external review.

Additional information to complement this report can be found in the following EASO reports:

Photo: © 2018 European Union (photographer: Peter Biro)