USA TODAY International Edition
TIDE OF MIGRANTS BY SEA TOPS 522,000 IN EUROPE THIS YEAR
Multitudes flooding into Europe come from countries such as Syria, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.
The route to Italy along the central Mediterranean is the deadliest — 2,621 migrants have drowned or gone missing there this year.
Arecord 522,124 migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe by sea this year, the International Organization for Migration said Tuesday.
The number is more than double the previous high set only last year.
Of the estimated number of migrants who made the hazardous journey by sea, 388,000 arrived in Greece and 130,891 in Italy. They hail from countries that include Syria, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan and Bangladesh, the IOM said. Last year, 219,000 migrants and refugees escaping war and poverty sailed to Europe.
The route to Italy along the central Mediterranean is the deadliest — 2,621 migrants have drowned or gone missing there this year — but deaths have started to increase in the Aegean Sea, where many Syrians are heading from Turkey in an effort to reach Greece, the IOM said. It estimated that 246 people have died on that route in 2015.
“Countries with far fewer resources than the European Union are hosting millions of refugees in the Middle East and thousands more migrants are on the move in many African countries,” IOM Director General William Lacy Swing said.
“What we are seeing in Europe is a consequence of a much bigger phenomenon,” Swing said in New York, where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly. He said wars, governments, poverty and climate change are forcing more people to flee their home countries and put their lives in the hands of human smugglers, risking death at sea or in deserts to get to Europe.
Dutch King Willem- Alexander on Monday deplored images of families forced to flee their homes and said the Netherlands has increased its humanitarian aid.
“We call on other nations to follow suit and give additional support to the U. N. so it can provide food and shelter to all those who have been forced to flee and give them a chance to rebuild their lives,” he said in an address to the U. N. General Assembly.
Last week, European Union ministers approved a plan to relocate 120,000 migrants across Europe in coming years to take some of the burden off nations such as Greece and Italy.
The United Nations has called for the 28- nation EU to go beyond relocating that number of migrants, saying it expects the plan will need to be expanded.