Vienna - In 2022, a total of 1,323 people were supported by IOM Austria in the voluntary return to their countries of origin. Despite limited opportunities to return to countries that had high numbers of returns in past years, such as Ukraine and Afghanistan, the previous year's figure of 1,358 supported migrants was almost reached.

In 2022, Georgia was the country with the highest number of voluntary returnees from Austria supported by IOM (145 persons) with an increase of 28 per cent compared to the previous year, followed by China (135 persons). The third most frequent return country was Republic of Türkiye, with 111 supported persons, the number has more than tripled compared to the previous year. 

A total of 69 of the voluntary returnees supported by IOM in 2022 had special health needs that had to be considered when organizing the travel. For the first time, this corresponds to more than five per cent of the total caseload. In total, 23 per cent of all returnees supported by IOM Austria in 2022 were female, 9 per cent were minors and 1,5 per cent were elderly migrants over 65 years of age.  

As part of the RESTART III  project, 61 persons were supported not only in their voluntary return, but also in their reintegration in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Somalia, Tunisia and Uzbekistan inter alia with cash and in-kind assistance. The project RESTART III is co-financed by the Austrian Ministry of the Interior and the European Union.

The statistics from 2022 and previous years are available here.

Read the entire press release in German.