The number of asylum seekers in South Korea has steadily increased in recent years since it began accepting refugee applications in 1994, government statistics showed.

With millions of people fleeing conflicts in war zones across the world, South Korea saw a surge in the number of asylum seekers from 1,574 in 2013 to 2,896 in 2014 and 4,265 last year.

The number of those who were granted asylum, too, rose from 57 to 94 and on to 106 during the same period.

Since 1994, the country has accepted 576 out of a total of 15,250 asylum applications as of December 2015. Its refugee acceptance rate stands at 3.7 percent, far lower than the U.N. average of 38 percent.

South Korea became the first Asian country to enforce the independent Refugee Act in 2013 to guarantee a minimum level of humanitarian protection for the forcibly displaced.