The International Organization for Migration has reported that over 30,000 migrants have arrived on European coasts this year so far, less than half the number in the same period in 2017. About 655 people are thought to have died on the journey in the past five months.
The UN agency IOM has reported that 30,300 migrants and refugees entered Europe via sea in the first 147 days of 2018. About 40% of them arrived in Italy, 35% in Greece and the rest (25%) in Spain. The Mediterranean arrivals are at this point in 2018 total less than half those seen last year and less than 15% of those seen in 2016 at the same point. Some 69,219 had arrived in the same period of the year in 2017 and 198,346 in 2016.
Some 655 people have lost their lives at sea since the beginning of 2018, more than 1,000 fewer than the recorded deaths in the same period last year.
Landings in Italy
The IOM reported in a statement that, during the month of May, arrivals in Italy came in second after those in Spain but were slightly higher than those in Greece. IOM chief in Rome Flavio Di Giacomo said that the 12,105 migrants recorded as having arrived in Italy via sea this year were 80% fewer than those seen in the same period last year, when 58,953 irregular migrants and refugees arrived on Italian coasts, and 70% fewer than the 40,671 seen in 2016.
Over 2,200 migrants have been rescued since Friday in the Mediterranean. About 400 migrants arrived from Tunisia but most - 1,800 - arrived from Libya. Arrivals in Italy in the first four weeks of May (2,638) are about a tenth of what was seen in the same month last year and a ninth of that in May 2016.
Arrivals in Spain
IOM chief in Spain Ana Dodevska said that 2,880 migrants had been rescued on the western Mediterranean route in the first 27 days of May 2018, compared with 835 during the entire month last year. The latest rescues brought the total number of men, women and children rescued at sea while trying to arrive in Spain this year to 7,507. Spain also surpassed the number of migrants who died at sea in 2017, with a total of 235 victims in 2018 as of May 27, higher than that seen in the same period in the past four years.