article_snippet: The number of asylum-seekers in the Western countries rose by nearly 50 per cent last year - driven by the devastating conflicts in Syria and Iraq, the UN has revealed.
article_snippet: In 2014, some 866,000 people applied for asylum across Europe, North American and other wealthy countries - up 45 percent in just a year earlier.
article_snippet: As a sign of the worst humanitarian crisis of our era, the number of asylum applications last year was the second highest on record, coming very close to the all-time-high of the about 900,000 requests made in 1992, at the beginning of the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, UNHCR said.
article_snippet: last year, 150,000 Syrians applied for asylum in industrialised countries, marking a 166-percent hike from 2013 and accounting for a fifth of all asylum claims, the UNHCR report said.
article_snippet: last year Iraqis accounted for 68,700 asylum applications to wealthy nations - almost double the number a year earlier - while Afghans made up the third largest group, with almost 60,000 applications.