MOSCOW (Sputnik) – According to the Die Welt newspaper, about 988,000 people applied for the asylum in the European Union, with Germany receiving 658,000 applications.
Italy and France, with 67,555 and 63,310 asylum applications were on the second and third places respectively, the media outlet added.
Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their crisis-torn home countries in the Middle East and North Africa to escape violence and poverty.
Germany has been the key destination for thousands of refugees and immigrants coming to Europe since the start of 2015. In 2015, the country registered over a million asylum applications.
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