Greece - IOM reports an estimated 187,631 migrants and refugees have entered Europe by sea in 2016, arriving in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Spain, through 8 May and 1,357 fatalities on the three major Mediterranean Sea routes connecting North Africa and Middle East to Europe. The number of fatalities is unchanged since last Friday. 

Arrivals by sea and deaths in the Mediterranean 1 January–8 May 2016

Some 2,800 new arrivals have been recorded in the past five days, almost all of them coming to Italy. Arrivals in Greece since Friday, 6 May are just under 100 through the weekend. For the year IOM estimates 155,399 migrants and refugees have made the short voyage from Turkey to Greece’s Aegean islands. All but 3,947 arrived before 1 April.
 

By comparison, deaths in 2015 through the end of May on all Mediterranean routes totalled 1,828. A total of 95 migrants perished in the Mediterranean during May 2015, one of the year’s least deadly months following one of the most deadly, April, when there were 1,244 fatalities.

Sub-Saharan Africans totalled over 20,000 of the 22,621 migrants arriving in Italy through 30 April. The number of Nigerians arriving via the Central Mediterranean route has nearly doubled compared with the same period in 2015 (see chart below).  Arrivals from Côte d’Ivoire have more than quadrupled, as have those from Guinea. Also up, slightly, are arrivals from Senegal, Mali and the Sudan.

Down significantly from the first four months of 2015 are arrivals from Somalia, Eritrea and the Gambia – although all three nationalities’ arrivals are recorded in the thousands.  IOM reports very little traffic along this route by citizens of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, who since 1 January 2015 have comprised nearly 90 percent of the arrivals coming to Greece along the Eastern Mediterranean route.

For the latest Mediterranean Update infographic please go to:

https://missingmigrants.iom.int/sites/default/files/Mediterranean_Update_10_May_2016_0.pdf

For latest arrivals and fatalities in the Mediterranean, please visit: http://migration.iom.int/europe 

Learn more about Missing Migrants Project at: http://missingmigrants.iom.int

For further information please contact IOM Greece. Daniel Esdras, Tel: +30 210 9912174, Email:  iomathens@iom.int or Kelly Namia, Tel: +302109919040, +302109912174, Email: knamia@iom.int

Or Abby Dwommoh at IOM Turkey, Tel: +903124551202, Email: adwommoh@iom.int.

Or Flavio Di Giacomo at IOM Italy, Tel: +39 347 089 8996, Email: fdigiacomo@iom.int

Or IOM Geneva, Leonard Doyle, Tel: +41-792857123, Email: ldoyle@iom.int or Joel Millman, Tel: + 41 79 103 87 20, Email: jmillman@iom.int