The number of asylum seekers in Iceland has increased by 65% this year, compared to the first nine months of the year 2012; majority of the applicants have been turned down.
By end of September, Útlendingastofnun (the Icelandic Directorate of Immigration) had dealt with 137 asylum applications and denied 128 asylum seekers refuge in Iceland, Morgunblaðið reports.
69 more applications are being handled.
Most of the applications were submitted at the beginning of the year, such as 32 applications that were submitted in January alone when two large groups from Croatia and Albania applied for asylum in Iceland.
Of those 128 asylum seekers who were turned away, 48 were considered being the responsibility of another state, according to the Dublin Regulation, whereas 80 applicants did not meet the conditions to be considered refugees.
Five people from Syria and three from Iran were granted political asylum in Iceland and one person from Mauritania received asylum on humanitarian grounds.
The asylum seekers this year have been of 24 nationalities but one person was stateless.
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