Refugee and Migrant Numbers Top One Million in Europe, Says IOM

Seven children, four men and two women drowned when a boat carrying migrants capsized off the tiny Greek island of Farmakonisi, coastguard officials said on Wednesday as a refugee exodus toward Europe continued despite winter cold.

The International Organization for Migration said Tuesday that more than 1 million people have entered Europe in a record-breaking year, driven out of their countries by war, poverty and persecution.

Of the total of a million arrivals, a vast majority – over 800,000 refugees – arrived by Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece by December 21, according to IOM.

The anti-migrant sentiment taking hold in a slew of nations facing an influx of refugees is disturbing, risky and puts people’s lives at risk, said the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Some 3,700 people are deceived to have died on their journey to Europe in 2015, with more than one million migrants and refugees entering the EU.

At least 3,692 migrants died this year during the voyage, the IMO says, and a growing number of the fatalities are among children or infants.

Surprise inspections by European Union experts of Belgian airports have shown that the country lacks the resources and techniques to properly conduct border checks. The second-highest number of arrivals – 150,317 – were in Italy, with the remainder in Bulgaria, Spain, Cyprus and Malta, in that order.

The Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, which killed 129 people, triggered concern that extremist militants could enter Europe amid the thousands of arriving migrants and prompted calls for nations to tighten their borders. Greece was by far probably the most very popular point of entry, with greater than 820,000 migrants arriving there.

According to CBC, the levels of migration observed this year have not been seen in “half a century”.

According to an IOM statement released this month, the top five nationalities arriving in Greece were from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Albania.

Half of those who made it to Europe this year were Syrians fleeing their country’s brutal civil war, the UNHCR said, underscoring the conflict’s dominant role in fuelling Europe’s migrant crisis. When children are dying on our doorstep we need to take bolder action.

“As part of the common European system, Hungary is looked upon to contribute to the joint efforts in dealing with the continent’s largest refugee crisis since the World War II and to meet its global legal commitments in this area under both worldwide law and the European Convention on Human Rights”, it said.

This marked a slight decline from 2014, when 170,000 people landed in Italy after crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa.