Author
Palestine
Until the second half of 2025, all applicants from Gaza were initially given subsidiary protection and most had appeal this before the IPAT. Some of these appeals had been pending for over five years. At the end of 2025 IPA decided to review these decisions, granting refugee status. It is unclear whether this practice was a result of a policy decision as practitioners reported at least one applicant from Gaza deemed only eligible for subsidiary protection yet excluded due to past criminal convictions.
Syria, Eritrea and Somalia
Applicants confirmed to be Eritrean and Somali are generally granted, as a minimum, subsidiary protection, although practitioners confirmed seeing in 2024 and 2025 rejections for some applicants from these countries owing to either credibility issues or to the fact that they come from safer parts of Somalia.
Although Syrian and Libyan applicants also benefitted from such an assumption until 2023, in 2024 and 2025 many applicants from both countries of origin were rejected on the ground that safety levels in some parts of the countries were high enough to offer adequate protection.
At the end of 2024, IPA decided to put on hold all pending applications from Syrian nationals following news of Assad’s departure from Syria.[1] This decision also affected several Syrians whose applications had been pending for a number of years.
Bangladesh and North African countries (excluding Libya)
NGOs reported that applications from individuals from Bangladesh and North African countries (excluding Libya) are processed expediently from detention and applicants from these countries are likely to see their applications for asylum channelled through the accelerated procedure with a return decision and a removal order being issued a few weeks or months after arrival (see accelerated procedure).
Forced and voluntary returns of Bangladeshi nationals have been regularly carried out since 2021 on the basis of the non-binding readmission agreements concluded with the EU in 2017 and 2018 respectively.[2] In 2023, the number of forced returns on Bangladeshis decreased, primarily due to challenges in securing diplomatic channels. The Home Affairs Ministry’s Voluntary Return Unit is extremely proactive in promoting voluntary return to this group of applicants, oftentimes even before they are informed of asylum or before they have the opportunity to meet with NGOs, lawyers or UNHCR. In 2024 and 2025, NGOs continued to receive reports of applicants being urged to apply for voluntary return, being told that an asylum application would be automatically rejected due to Bangladesh being deemed safe and that pending the asylum procedure they would remain locked up in detention. Similar reports were also received from Bangladeshi UAMs.
These practices continued throughout 2024 and 2025 despite the recent decision of the ECtHR where the Court found that the asylum procedure undertaken by the Bangladeshi applicant and examined under the accelerated procedure did not offer effective guarantees protecting him from an arbitrary removal.[3]
[1] Times of Malta, ‘Malta suspends Syrian asylum applications’, 10 December 2024, available here.
[2] See EC, Migration and Home Affairs, Return and readmission, available at: http://bit.ly/3QM5Bcj.
[3] ECtHR, S.H. v. Malta, no. 37241/21, 20 December 2022.