UN: Refugee arrivals by sea in Spain has trippled

Migrants wait for transferring from NGO ship Juventa to Spansih NGO Proactiva Open Arms after being rescued from the Mediterranean Sea on 20 June, 2017 [Marcus Drinkwater/Anadolu Agency]

Spain witnessed a three-fold increase in refugees entering the country using the sea-route this year when compared to the same period last year, the UN migration agency said today.

So far this year, 8,385 refugees have entered Spain by sea, compared to 2,476 during the same period last year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement.

At least 121 refugees lost their lives while trying to reach Spain by sea this year, compared to 97 last year.

On Wednesday, some 20 refugees arrived in a dinghy at a beach in Spain’s southwestern Cadiz city, where tourists were swimming and sunbathing.

https://twitter.com/cicemachtr/status/895806312419794945

According to the IOM, 117,795 refugees entered Europe by sea in 2017 so far, with almost 83 percent arriving in Italy.

Read: Rome’s mayor does not want more migrants in Italian capital

The arrivals to Greece decreased to 12,191 this year, when compared to 161,232 last year, the IOM said.

There have been 3,501 refugee fatalities worldwide in 2017 so far.

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.