Slovenia hosted 90 refugees and asylum seekers, including 37 from Serbia and Montenegro and 21 from Bosnia at year's-end. Slovenia rejected 123 applications on the merits and another 67 on procedural or safe third country grounds. It granted 17 asylum applications and gave another 20 humanitarian status. It received 1,100 applications during the year, but closed 963 cases when the applicants left the country.

Temporary protection for 2,200 Bosnians ended in August 2003, but Slovenia modified its law permitting them to apply for permanent residence and allowed Bosnians to count their years in this status toward citizenship. About 2,000 opted for and obtained permanent residency during the past two years, while 200 returned to Bosnia. In addition, Slovenia granted permanent residence to about 12,000 of the 13,000 essentially stateless former Yugoslavs who have resided in Slovenia for years since the Balkan wars and denied it to 360. Slovene courts have ruled the government must rectify the status of people who had permanent residency at the outset of the wars, but who were erased from the government's list of people with permanent residency.

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