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Norway 'lost' 661 asylum seekers in January alone

NTB/The Local
NTB/The Local - [email protected]
Norway 'lost' 661 asylum seekers in January alone
UDI said many of the 'lost' asylum seekers will likely "show up in some way or another". Photo: Torstein Bøe / NTB scanpix

Some 661 asylum seekers, including 28 unaccompanied minors, are registered as having disappeared from Norwegian asylum centres in January.

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That’s more than in any single month in 2015, according to figures from the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI).
 
The figures come from an overview Aftenbladet was given by UDI. A spokesman from the agency cautioned that the numbers could change. 
 
“These are the latest figures. It’s just one week into February and it is therefore likely that many of these will show up in some way or another and therefore no longer show up as ‘left asylum centre with no know address’,” Kristian Nicolai Stakset-Gundersen said, adding that the numbers often go down as time passes. 
 
Of those who dissapeared in Janauary, 163 were Syrians. The next largest groups were asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq and Egypt. 
 
In total, 2,207 people disappeared from asylum centres in Norway last year. 
 
Reports of ‘disappearing’ asylum centres have come from across Europe, with Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Italy and others reporting that they have officially lost track of large groups of asylum seekers. 

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