Federal asylum centres
SEM operated a total of 50 federal asylum centres .
Federal asylum centres are where asylum seekers live until their application is decided and they are allocated to a canton.
Many of them as part of emergency planning .
Due to the high number of applications in 2023, SEM had to rely on additional accommodation provided temporarily by the armed forces, the cantons or the communes.
Some of them were only open for part of the year.
The average accommodation capacity throughout the year was 10,506 places.
The total number of overnight stays in the federal asylum centres was 1,697,983.
On 15 September (reporting date), 874 children and young people were attending school in the various federal asylum centres.