Germany sees major slump in asylum claims

PanARMENIAN.Net - Germany has seen a slump in the number of people arriving to seek asylum, weeks after several Balkan states tightened their borders, figures show, according to BBC News.

Some 20,000 people applied in March; last December it was 120,000.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the focus had switched from crisis management to integrating the more than one million who arrived in 2015.

The news came as a second group of migrants were deported from Greece to Turkey under a controversial EU deal.

Germany registered about 170,000 asylum claimants in the first three months of this year, compared with half a million people in the final quarter of last year, according to the interior ministry.

The country is the top destination for arrivals in Europe, many of whom are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.