IOM: Migrant arrivals into Europe tops 1 million in 2015

Meanwhile, 11 migrants bound for European Union member Greece, including three children, drowned off the Turkish coast yesterday when their boat sank in the latest tragedy in the Aegean Sea, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.

According to the IOM report, the total number of migrants and refugees entering by land or sea reached more than 1,006,000 this year on Monday.

The number of people displaced by war – half of of them fleeing Syria – is the highest seen in western and central Europe since the 1990s, when numerous conflicts broke out in former Yugoslavia, according to the UNHCR.

Germany and Sweden have welcomed the largest numbers of refugees.

The UN agency said that one in every two of those crossing the Mediterranean this year, representing half a million people, were Syrians escaping war. It’s necessary and it’s desirable, ” he said, adding that “migration must be legal, safe and secure for all – both for the migrants themselves and the countries that will become their new home”.

The waves of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere fleeing conflict-ridden homelands have fueled an “unprecedented anti-migrant sentiment”, he said. As of December 21, 821,008 migrants have entered through Greece and 150,317 through Italy.

A joint IOM and UNHCR statement said found a “more co-ordinated European response” was beginning to take shape. Much smaller numbers arrived by boat to other Mediterranean countries. Many migrants are trapped in limbo, unable to work and unsure of where to go.

The vast majority have arrived by sea.

The top five nationalities arriving in Italy were Eritrean, Nigerian, Somalian, Sudanese, and Syrian, the IOM said, citing figures from the Italian Interior Ministry. Furio De Angelis, the UNHCR’s representative in Canada, said that Canada’s program for resettling Syrian refugees is a “model internationally”.

Some 3,845 maritime migrant arrivals were also recorded in Spain, 269 in Cyprus and 106 in Malta. Hungary and Slovakia have threatened legal action against the EU’s controversial plan to distribute 160,000 refugees across the bloc.

In Europe, most refugees crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey into Greece, which saw over 800,000 refugees – 80 percent of the total number arriving in Europe by sea this year.

But many continue to push in to Europe, where they hope to gain citizenship through laws created under the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees.

“If we are creative in using our visa policies to give temporary protective status to everyone so there is a measure of support there… then I think it is a manageable proposition”, he said.

This means that 400 more people lost their lives compared to past year while reports indicate that the number of fatalities is continuing to rise as 20 new deaths in the eastern Mediterranean have been registered since December 18.