Between April and June, 1,200 Eritreans made asylum applications, five times more than in the previous quarter, when 235 Eritreans applied.

Amnesty International ascribes this increase to Eritrea's open-ended national service, which the UN has categorized as forced labor. Many young people from Eritrea are said to escape their country to evade becoming entrapped in this system.



Syrian asylum requests, in contrast, have only decreased, especially after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad at the end of 2024. In the second quarter of 2025, 595 Syrians sought asylum in the Netherlands — a 37 percent drop compared with the previous quarter, and 78 percent fewer than during the same period the year before.

Total Asylum Numbers Edging Up, Lower Than Last Year
Some 5,300 people applied for asylum for the first time in the Netherlands in the second quarter of this year, the newspaper reported.

That is 17 percent higher than in the previous three months, but still 32 percent less than the volume recorded at the same time in 2024.

Children accounted for a third of all asylum applicants in the second quarter. Significantly, 64% of all asylum seekers from Eritrea were under 18, demonstrating the continued plight of young people fleeing forced military conscription in their home country.



These numbers are for initial asylum requests only – not family members applying to be reunite.