Today, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) published a Country of Origin Information (COI) Report titled 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 asylum seekers and will be used in the development of a country guidance note on Syria.

Syrians continued to be the top citizenship applying for asylum in the EU+ uninterruptedly since 2013, although the number of applications lodged between January and September 2019 (some 51 200) was lower than in the same period in 2018 (about 57 000). Three in every four Syrian applications (almost 75%) were lodged in four EU+ countries.

Syrian applicants also received more first-instance decisions than any other citizenship group. Since the beginning of 2019, Syrian applicants received some 58 300 decisions. Syria was also the country of origin whose nationals had the most cases pending at first instance in the EU+. At the end of September 2019, there were some 44 600 Syrian applications awaiting a first-instance decision, some 80% of which were pending in just five EU+ countries.

The report, EASO COI Report: Syria – Security situation, aims to provide information on aspects of the country's security situation. It focuses in particular on the impact of the security situation for the civilian population during 2018 and the first half of 2019. Limited information documenting significant developments to the security situation that occurred in October 2019 is also included.

The report was drafted by the Country of Origin Information (COI) specialists on Syria from Norway (Landinfo) together with the EASO COI sector, as referred to in the acknowledgments section in accordance with the EASO COI Report Methodology, and was reviewed by COI experts from Denmark. Additionally, an external expert review was carried out by ACCORD.

Photo: © gettyimages/Jorge Villalba