Eurostat published a report on Wednesday revealing that the number of Unaccompanied Minors seeking asylum in the EU has increased by 72% between 2020 and 2021. The report by Eurostat, a body of the European Commission, identifies an unaccompanied minor as a person under the age of 18 who arrives in the territory of an EU Member State without a responsible adult accompanying him or her, or who is left alone after arrival. In 2021, there were 23,300 requests from unaccompanied minors. This is an increase of 72% compared to 2020. Of the 23,300 applications, 93% were men, making them the majority. Those between 16 and 17 years old constituted 68%, while those between 14 and 15 years old represented 23% and those under 14 years old 9%. The report finds that the increase is largely due to the situation in Afghanistan. There was an increase of 12,270 unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan in 2021 compared to 5,495 in 2020. In 2021, unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan accounted for 53% of applications. Regarding host countries, only three EU states (Bulgaria (85.0%), Romania (63.3%) and Slovakia (56.8%)) were found to have rates above 50% for applications of unaccompanied minors compared to all minor applications Austria accounted for 24% of all asylum seekers considered unaccompanied minors in the EU. Germany and Bulgaria accounted for 14%, Greece 10%, while Belgium and Romania accounted for 8%. However, the total number of asylum seekers fell by 5% compared to 2020.