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Figures reveal ‘growing lack of safe routes to UK’ as families mourn Channel disaster victims
A group of people are brought in to Dungeness, Kent, by the RNLI following a small boat incident in the Channel in September 2022

ALMOST 100,000 people, including Afghans, Syrians and Sudanese nationals, have been waiting more than six months for a decision on their asylum claims, official figures show. 

At the end of September this year, there were 143,377 people in the asylum backlog — an increase of 74 per cent over the last year, according to Home Office figures.

Of those, a staggering 97,717 have been waiting for more than six months, including more than 30,000 people from Sudan, Syria, Iran, Eritrea and Afghanistan, with some left in limbo for years. 

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