RefugeesOver the weekend, the number of refugees arriving in Europe crossed 1 million mark

Refugee numbers keep growing past one million // Source: commons.wikimedia.org

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Monday that over a million irregular migrants and refugees arrived in Europe in 2015, mostly from Syria, Africa, and South Asia.

Through the weekend, IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix - Flow Monitoring System counted 999,745 irregular arrivals across the Mediterranean, including migrants journeying by both land and sea to Greece, as well as to Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Malta, and Cyprus.

With arrivals of 4,141 migrants or refugees landing in Greece on Monday, IOM reports total arrivals to Europe at roughly 1,005,504, with just 3 percent coming by land. The total is the highest migration flow since the Second World War.

The IOM says that the tally of fatalities also continues to rise, with twenty new deaths recorded in the Eastern Mediterranean since last Friday. This year’s total of migrant/refugee deaths now stands at 3,692 — over 400 more than in 2014 — plus at least thirty more deaths reported by African migrants seeking to enter Europe through Spain’s Canary Islands.

IOM Greece continues to monitor fatalities in the Greek islands, where a growing number of victims are young children. On 19 December a wooden boat carrying sixty-two migrants capsized off Chios Island and a 2-year old Iraqi boy drowned. According to the Greek Coast Guard, six of the fifteen bodies of migrants and refugees to wash up on Greek islands this month have been infants or children.

“We know migration is inevitable, necessary and desirable,” said IOM director General William Lacy Swing. “But it’s not enough to count the number of those arriving — or the nearly 4,000 this year reported missing or drowned. We must also act. Migration must be legal, safe and secure for all — both for the migrants themselves and the countries that will become their new homes.”

In December alone, IOM estimates that 67,700 or more migrants have crossed into Greece through the country’s maritime borders. During the same period, some 52,500 people crossed from Greece into the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This means that roughly 77 percent of all migrant arrivals in December already have passed through Greece and into Macedonia and other points further north.

Since the beginning of the year, IOM estimates that over 810,000 migrants and refugees have crossed into Greece by sea. Only about 5,000 migrants have crossed into Greece by land.

According to IOM’s monitoring system between 9-20 December 45.6 percent of migrants crossing Greece’s Macedonia border were male adults; 21.9 percent were female adults; 35 percent were accompanied children, and 1.5 percent unaccompanied minors. The vast majority are Syrians, followed by Iraqi and Afghans, as no other nationalities are now allowed to cross.

IOM notes that it is offering assisted voluntary return to their country of origin for migrants who have been turned back from the border. An increasing number of migrants, notably Moroccans, are expressing an interest, given the lack of other options to return home safely.