Asylum claims drop to nearly half the level of 2001

GENEVA - The number of people seeking asylum in the West fell last year to nearly half the level at the start of the decade, the UN refugee agency said on Monday.

Some 358,800 applications for asylum were lodged in industrialized countries last year, down 5 percent from the previous year and some 42 percent lower than the decade's peak in 2001, it said in its latest annual report on asylum trends.

Europe - where many countries are engaged in heated debates over immigration - accounted for nearly 270,000 claims, a 6 percent drop mainly due to far fewer requests recorded in Italy, Malta and Greece.