Last year, some 3,000 asylum seekers returned to their country of origin voluntarily, with the highest number – 326 – leaving in December.

In 2014, 2,269 refugees left the Netherlands to go back home, according to figures from the international migration organisation IOM.

The refugees leaving the country are not recent arrivals and were not living in emergency accommodation, the IOM said.

Last weekend, a 30-year-old Iraqi man apparently killed himself because he could not get his passport back to return home to help his wife and children.The justice ministry has ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death.