Last year some 650,000 people sought asylum in EU member countries, which is almost 50 percent fewer compared to the 2015 record high of 1.26 million, Eurostat said on Tuesday (March 20).

The 2017 total, which counted only first-time asylum applicants, includes more than 100,000 Syrians, 47,500 Iraqis and 43,600 Afghans.

In Croatia, 880 people applied for asylum in 2017, or 59 percent down from the year before, when 2,150 asylum seekers were registered. According to these numbers, asylum seekers in Croatia constitute 0.1 percent of all asylum seekers in the EU.

Germany is still the most popular country for migrants and refugees, with 30 percent of all asylum applications filed there, followed by Italy with 20 percent, France with 14 percent and Greece with 9 percent.