Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many people living in the Akrotiri and Dhekelia RAF Sovereign Base Areas have applied for asylum since October 1998; how many such applications have been (a) accepted and (b) rejected; and how many such people have been removed from the Sovereign Base Areas.

Penny Mordaunt

Since 1998 and up until October 2015, 67 People have applied for asylum in the Sovereign Base Areas (SBA), 29 of those were accepted as recognised refugees and 38 asylum claims were rejected.

In October 2015 a group of 115 migrants arrived in RAF Akrotiri, 46 of those migrants temporarily resident in the SBA have lodged asylum claims that are being considered by the SBA Administration. As at 12 February 2016, six have been recognised as refugees by the SBA Administration and 15 have been issued asylum rejection letters. In total 85 migrants are no longer in the SBA. Those remaining who are not eligible for asylum will be liable for deportation.