A total 612 people in the UAE are applying for political asylum with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Most or 90 percent of the asylum seekers are Syrians and Iraqis, according to the UNHCR. Others seeking refugee status are Afghans, Palestinians and Sudanese.
An asylum status allows a refugee to be resettled in a preferred country.
More than 238,000 Syrians are already living and working in the UAE, which pledged to shelter only 15,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years. The Syrian refugees have been displaced by the civil war in their country.
credit: Dubai 92
