Nigeria among top 10 African countries with highest Schengen visa refusals

A report has indicated Nigeria is ranked among 10 African countries with the highest Schengen visa rejections.

Schengen is a very popular travel destination among Africans too. According to the latest official statistics, provided by schengenvisainfo.com over 2.8 million residents of Africa applied for a Schengen visa during 2018. As such, they accounted for 18 per cent of all Schengen visa applications collected worldwide last year.

However, based on statistics from 2018, the list of 10 African countries with the highest number of Schengen visa denials is topped by Algeria.

As gathered, Schengen embassies located in the Northern African country received a total of 713,255 visa applications last year. In turn, 324,291 applicants were turned down. This was to say, Schengen visa denials at this country accounted for 45.5 per cent of all visa applications.

Another Northern African country joined Algeria at the top when it came for Schengen visa denials. Schengen embassies in Morocco denied a total of 119,586 visa applications which was equal to 18 per cent of all visa applications being collected in this country in 2018.

Nigeria ranks third in this list. Last year Schengen embassies operating in Nigeria denied visas to 44,076 applicants. Compared to all visa applications in Nigeria, visa denials represented almost half (49.80 per cent) of the total. That being said, Nigeria had the highest rate of Schengen visa denials in Africa if looked in percentage terms.

Other countries that follow in this list are Tunisia, Senegal, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Angola, Cameroon and Ghana.

Schengen is a border-free area constituted from 26 European countries which allow residents of member countries to travel freely within the area.  On the other hand, residents of non-member states who want to enter Schengen must get a visa beforehand.

Home of many historical places and cultural landmarks, this part of the world is a major attraction to visitors coming from all around the world.

But while the number of Schengen visa applications is high so is the number of visa denials. Taken overall the average rate of Schengen visa denials in Africa in 2018 was 26.8%. That was a lot higher compared to the global average of 9.6%, statistics show.

The question, however, is at which African countries do Schengen embassies deny most visa applications. Fortunately, annual statistics provide us with a distribution map of Schengen visa denials across Africa.

The table below shows ten African countries with the highest number of Schengen visa denials in 2018 and other related data

There is a common explanation among experts that this high number of Schengen visa denials in Africa is mostly due to illegal immigration noted in recent years. That is why Northern African countries because of their proximity to European coasts led the table above.

In a report published by Reuters in 2018, it said nearly 1.5 million people have left sub-Saharan Africa for Europe and the United States since 2010, while millions more are making plans to follow in their footsteps, researchers said on Thursday.

The report said, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya were the biggest sources of migrants to Europe and the United States among the dozens of nations south of the Sahara, according to the Pew Research Center, a polling and demographic research group in Washington.

The large-scale movement of people out of sub-Saharan Africa has grown steadily nearly every year since 2010, the Pew study said.

Global migration overall has strained resources in host countries that are struggling to shoulder the costs. In some places, migration has fueled political tensions and calls for the closing of borders.

Migrants, meanwhile, leave homelands that offer few job prospects, low wages and the dangers of conflict, political instability and modern-day slavery, the study said.

Millions more people from the Sub-Saharan region indicated that they would leave if they could, according to Pew findings from six countries.

“The survey results do indicate a certain restlessness among people who want to leave their countries or plan to in the next years,” Phillip Connor, senior researcher of the report, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.