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Over 150,000 migrants arrived in Europe since January 2015

July 11, 2015 at 11:38 am

Some 150,000 migrants have reached Europe by sea since the start of 2015, with the Greek islands receiving around 1,000 migrants every day, Arab48.com reported on Friday.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) stated that more than 1,900 migrants drowned while they were trying to cross to Europe.

IOM said that Greece has received 75,970 migrants, while 74,947 arrived in Italy during this year.

According to the Hellenic Coast Guard, over 7,200 migrants arrived in Greece by sea in the first week of July alone. This makes Greece the largest European point of arrival for migrant sea arrivals, amid one of the worst economic crises the country has faced in decades.

Though most of the migrants arriving in Greece originate from Syria, Greece is registering migrant arrivals from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Somalia.

According to IOM, more than 1,900 migrants have lost their lives in the Mediterranean to date this year. The death toll is equivalent to half the number of deaths recorded for the same period in 2014.

IOM indicated that this can be attributed to the significant presence of EU-Frontex ships in international waters, which, combined with the enhancement of Operation Triton, has enabled a greater number of migrants to be saved.

On Thursday night, the Italian coast guards rescued 823 migrants and recovered 12 corpses in eight different operations.

Paris and Berlin announced they have received about one third of 60,000 migrants that the EU planned to resettle, in order to reduce the pressure on Italy and Greece.