More than 330 minors seeking asylum in Malta are still waiting to be granted international protection, official data shows.

According to figures collected by the Eurostat, up until June this year, there were 1,640 persons whose applications for asylum were still pending, the highest number in over a year.

According to the data, 335 of them were applications by those aged under 18, with 215 being younger than 14. The majority of those seeking protection were male and aged between 18 and 34, the Eurostat found.

For the statistics office, pending applications for international protection are those made at any time and which are still under consideration by the authorities at the end of the period under review.

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At the end of June, there were still 885,500 applications for asylum protection in EU member states under consideration by the national authorities, a decrease of 8% when compared with the same month in the previous year.

The figures were issued as part of statistics published this week highlighting the number of asylum seekers across the EU. 

The number of those applying for asylum for the first time in Malta between April and June this year in relation to the island’s population was the third highest in all member states, the official data shows.

Figures issued by the European Union’s statistics agency this week showed that in the months under review, around 400 applications were recorded in Malta. Only Cyprus and Greece had higher figures.

The lowest rates were observed in Slovakia, Estonia, Hungary and Latvia. According to the statistics office, in the second quarter of 2018 there were 267 first-time asylum applicants per million population in the EU where the majority hailed from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

For the statistics office, applicants are considered to be “first-time applicants” when they have submitted an application for international protection for the first time in a given member state.

A person can be recorded as an applicant only if he or she had never applied for international protection in the reporting country in the past, irrespective of the fact that they were found to have applied in another EU country.

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