More than one million Refugees have entered Europe in 2015: UNHCR
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LONDON: More than one million migrants and refugees reached Europe this year, including over 970,000 who made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. The new figures, jointly released by the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), listed migrant arrivals in six European countries since 1 January, with the vast majority of people 821,008 landing in Greece. A total of 3,692 migrants died or disappeared crossing the sea, IOM said. “The number of people displaced by war and conflict is the highest seen in Western and Central Europe since the 1990s,” the UNHCR said, referring to the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia that decade. 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 fueling Europe’s migrant crisis. Afghans made up 20% of the group, while 7% of arrivals were Iraqis. (The Journal)
