More than 100,000 reach Europe by sea this year: IOM

The UN migration agency IOM reported Friday that 103,175 migrants and refugees had entered Europe by sea in 2017 as of July 12.


Up to that date, there were 2,357 deaths during Mediterranean Sea crossings involving migrants and refugees trying to get to Europe.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the figures showed that almost 85 percent of people had arrived in Italy and the remainder came to Greece, Cyprus and Spain. Many of the migrants had left from Libya in North Africa.

By contrast, in the same period last year, there were 240,014 people who had landed in Europe after making perilous sea crossings.

IOM said its Rome spokesperson, Flavio Di Giacomo, reported that as of July 9, a total of 86,121 migrants had arrived in Italy by sea.

He explained that the total did not include most of the 7,721 migrants rescued in the central Mediterranean route between July 10 and 12.

IOM's spokesperson in Libya, Christine Petre reported that on July 13, some 263 migrants were rescued at sea in two separate incidents.
  [globaltimes.cn/Xinhua]
15/7/17