About 45,000 asylum applications were filed in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland as of July, the highest number since the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis.

Preliminary figures were announced today by the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) on Thursday.

In June, about 40,600 people applied for protection status.

The Malta-based agency estimated that applications were particularly high from Afghanistan.

A month before the country fell under the radical Islamic Taliban and dramatic weeks of evacuations, they were around 7,300, while in June, 6,000 Afghans applied for asylum in the EU, Norway and Switzerland.

"Most applications continue to come from Syria (around 8,500)," according to EASO.

Since December 2020, however, the gap in arrivals coming from Syria and Afghanistan has narrowed rapidly.

Of the approximately 45,000 asylum seekers, 2,200 were unaccompanied minors.

Applications from unaccompanied minors have not been registered in such numbers since November 2016.

As the number of applications increased in many countries, fewer applications were reported from some North and West African countries, including Mali, which recorded a large drop in July with around 570 applications compared to around 1,000 in June.