Over 220,000 refugees enter Germany so far in 2016

By Erbil Basay

BERLIN (AA) - A total of 222,264 refugees have entered Germany in the first half of 2016, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Friday.

Maiziere told reporters in Berlin that while 1.1 million refugees arrived in Germany in 2015, the number decreased in 2016.

About 91,000 refugees entered Germany in January, while the number decreased to about 19,000 in June, according to the minister.

He said mostly Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi, Iranian and Russian refugees arrived in the country.

Austria and Germany witnessed last year their biggest refugee crisis in decades, as hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly from conflict regions in the Middle East and Africa, arrived to these countries.

Many migrants used Austria as a transit country to reach Germany, which accepted nearly 1.1 million refugees in 2015.