The State Department recently announced that the number of people applying for selection in the annual diversity visa lottery steeply declined from the previous year. Of the 8.7 million applications received, 6.2 million people qualified for entry in the 2003 lottery. Last year, 13 million people sent in applications, and 10 million were accepted. The application period began on October 1, 2001, just as the US was gearing of its military campaign in Afghanistan.
Each year 55,000 people can receive visas through the diversity visa program. Generally, about 70,000 or so people are notified that they have been selected, because there are always some people who either do not meet the requirements or chose to not pursue their cases. Those who are not selected for further processing are not notified by the State Department, so an entrant who has not yet heard from the State Department has not been selected.
The full results of the numbers selected for each country follow, along with the numbers from 2002:
REGION/COUNTRY: NUMBER NUMBER
SELECTED SELECTED
2003 2002
AFRICA
Algeria 834 1,163
Angola 29 15
Benin 134 70
Botswana 4 12
Burkina Faso 28 14
Burundi 21 0
Cameroon 675 775
Cape Verde 1 12
Central African Republic 8 2
Chad 45 19
Comoros 2 0
Congo 41 76
Congo, Dem. Rep. of 619 405
Cote d’Ivoire 298 163
Djibouti 24 10
Egypt 1,551 2,046
Equatorial Guinea 8 0
Eritrea 252 246
Ethiopia 5,562 4,997
Gabon 20 18
Gambia, The 32 63
Ghana 6,333 6,531
Guinea 157 274
Guinea Bissau 1 2
Kenya 3,194 2,408
Lesotho 2 0
Liberia 1,067 1,117
Libya 61 26
Madagascar 25 3
Malawi 31 27
Mali 46 43
Mauritania 14 43
Mauritius 25 15
Morocco 3,083 2,956
Mozambique 5 8
Namibia 6 3
Niger 34 45
Nigeria 5,989 6,049
Rwanda 21 22
Sao Tome and Principe 0 0
Senegal 199 379
Seychelles 0 2
Sierra Leone 3,096 5,767
Somalia 748 1,328
South Africa 617 452
Sudan 1,297 1,820
Swaziland 5 5
Tanzania 349 269
Togo 1,994 786
Tunisia 114 151
Uganda 195 192
Zambia 109 91
Zimbabwe 133 121
ASIA
Afghanistan 45 208
Bahrain 7 3
Bangladesh 4,935 5,497
Bhutan 4 4
Brunei 1 0
Burma 461 930
Cambodia 260 267
Hong Kong SAR 190 205
Indonesia 608 537
Iran 768 1,703
Iraq 71 117
Israel 145 199
Japan <SPA
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