The Austrian Interior Ministry confirmed today that 845 asylum applications under the category of “family reunification” were submitted in January this year, a significantly higher number compared to previous years.
The ministry highlighted that in January 2023, there were 421 applications, and in the first month of 2022, there were only 310 requests.
A statement from the Interior Ministry on Saturday revealed that the vast majority of the applications submitted in January 2024 were for family reunification from Syria, totaling 782 out of 845 applications.
It pointed out that last year, 89 percent of the corresponding applications were from Syrians, and in 2022, the figure was also high at 79 percent.
The statement added that regarding the ages of the applicants last year, out of a total of 9,180 people, there were 3,482 children aged between 0 and 6 years, and 2,282 applicants were in the age group of 7 to 13 years.
According to asylum law, a family member, either a parent of a minor child or a spouse, is entitled to apply for family reunification, provided that the marriage was already valid and in effect before the individual eligible for dependency entered the country for protection or asylum.
The influx of child reunification requests has caused significant disruption in Austrian schools due to difficulties in accommodating, integrating, and teaching the language to this number of children.
