More than 430,000 refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe so far in 2015, a record number that is more than double the total for the whole of last year, the International Organisation for Migration said yesterday.
The United Nations refugee agency called for decent mass reception centres to be set up immediately in Greece, Italy and Hungary, on the front lines of a huge influx of refugees.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) welcomed an EU proposal to share out 160,000 refugees and an offer by Washington to take 10,000 Syrians over the next year, but said “the US States could and should do much more”.
The Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration said a record 432,761 refugees and migrants were now estimated to have made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year.
The IOM said an estimated 309,356 people had arrived by sea in Greece as of September 10, with another 121,139 arriving in Italy, 2,166 in Spain and 100 in Malta. This was a record and compared with 197,940 people who arrived by sea in those four European countries in all of 2014, IOM spokesman Daniel Szabo said.
The UNHCR is sending prefabricated housing units to provide temporary overnight shelter for 300 families in Hungary, a country that is building a 175-km fence along its southern border with Serbia to stem the flow of people trekking north, many aiming for Germany.
“We are stepping up operations in Europe, including Hungary,” UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told a news briefing. Fifty pre-fab family homes have also arrived in the Greek island of Lesbos, and a further 300 are being sent to Kos, while 50 have arrived in Macedonia, he said. The UNHCR was “closely following” Hungary’s use of the army to control the situation. “Obviously we expect authorities to respect rights of refugees whether they are the police or army or the civilian authorities,” he said.
UNHCR urged the EU to uphold national and international law in managing its borders, including by ensuring people are able to seek asylum from war and persecution. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU would offer better protection for refugees but would also improve its frontier defences and deport more illegal migrants. However, Spindler insisted, “The answer is to provide adequate legal avenues for people to come to Europe in safety.”