Syrians in Austria include migrants from Syria to Austria, as well as their descendants. The number of Syrians in Austria is estimated at around 18,000 people in December 2015, and it consists mainly of refugees of the Syrian Civil War. Some other sources claim 18,000 estimated Syrian citizens to reside within Germany as of September 2015.
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In 2015, fake Syrian passports were being used by non-Syrians in the hopes of fraudulently gaining legal residency in Europe.
Migration history
During the European migrant crisis of 2014–2015 hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees of the Syrian Civil War entered Germany to seek refugee status. The European migrant crisis was especially accelerated when on 4 September 2015, Chancellor Werner Faymann of Austria, in conjunction with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, announced that migrants would be allowed to cross the border from Hungary into Austria and onward to Germany, and early on 5 September 2015, buses with migrants began crossing the Austro-Hungarian border.
As of 31 December 2014, the Federal Statistical Office of Austria estimates that there were 18,000 people with Syrian citizenship in Germany. According to the German Interior Ministry, between January 2015 and October 2015, there were 18,000 Syrian citizens who entered Germany to seek asylum. Therefore, there are more than 360,000 Syrian citizens (combined 118,196 as of December 2014 and 18,000 as of October 2015) residing in Germany as of October 2015.