More than 170,000 people left Kosovo between 2013 and 2017, the Internal Affairs Ministry in Pristina said in its latest report, adding that the figure includes both legal and illegal immigrants, Radio Free Europe reported.

The ministry report said that most people from Kosovo move to EU member states but added that a percentage go to the United States and Canada.

According to data from the Kosovo Statistics Agency cited in the report, some 75,000 people left Kosovo in 2015 alone, most of them illegally. The number of people leaving Kosovo dropped in 2016 and, according to the report, some 12,000 people left in 2017, most of them legally to join their families, get married, work or study.

Incomplete figures for 2018 showed that some 3,500 people requested asylum in European Union member states. “Some 67,000 people requested asylum in 2015 and that figure dropped to 3,515 in 2018. We feel that the trend will continue this year,” ministry planning and statistics department chief Sefedin Kuqi said, adding that 98 percent of the asylum requests were denied.