ABSTRACT
By the late 1980s, Tamils were being joined by several other groups of refugees from Africa and Asia. A flight of larger numbers of Alevi Kurds from south-eastern Anatolia in Turkey to European countries began in 1988, in response to repression by the Turkish State and the dominant Sunni majority. The UKIAS claimed that, by September 1988, Kurds had replaced Tamils as the foremost group claiming asylum in the UK (Ashford, 1993, p 69). The Home Office figures showed that applications by Turkish citizens had risen from 50 in 1985 to 700 in 1988, and to 4,600 in 1989.1 Applications by Somalis had also been rising from 50 in 1983, to 400 in 1988 and 2,660 in 1989.2 These reflected the conflict situation in Somalia in the lead up to the collapse of the Siad Barre regime which, from May 1988, turned to all out civil war in the northern part of the country (El-Solh, 1991, p 541). While only 450 Sri Lankans had applied for asylum in 1988, a drop from the peak of 2,300 in 1985, there had been a rise again in 1989 to 2,060. Asylum applications by Ugandans had risen by 900 to 1,580 in 1989. Other significant nationality groups which were mentioned as applying in 1989 were Indians (680), Ethiopians (520) and Zaireans (450).3 The statistics also mentioned the relative proportions in overall applications between 1979 and 1989 by nationality group – Iranians (25%, and they also constituted 25% of all refusals in that period), Sri Lankans (14%), Turkish citizens (11%), Somalis (7%) and Ugandans (6%).4
