NEWS CENTER – The number of people using the world’s deadliest migration route via the central Mediterranean to reach European Union (EU) countries has more than doubled, and irregular crossings at the bloc’s outer borders have reached their highest level in seven years.
As immigration sits on the political agenda of Europe, including the UK, Europe’s border and coast guard said today that irregular arrivals rose 13 percent between January and July to reach 176,100, the highest of the period since 2016. He said he had reached the highest figure.
Frontex said the increase was entirely due to the 115 percent increase in the number of people using the “mid-Mediterranean” route, which is now the main migration route to the EU and accounts for more than half of all EU border detections.
According to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration data, more than 2,900 people have disappeared in the Mediterranean so far in 2023, most of them on the central route.
Frontex said the route from Libya or Tunisia to Greece or Italy could take several days, is often made by unseaworthy, dangerously overloaded boats, and was successfully used by more than 89,000 people in the first seven months of 2023.
At least 41 people are believed to have died when a boat sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa last week.
In June, an obsolete and overcrowded fishing vessel believed to be carrying up to 750 people sank off Pylos, on the west coast of Greece, four days after sailing from eastern Libya; only 104 people were rescued. Frontex said “migration pressure” on the central Mediterranean route will continue to increase.
Anti-immigration sentiment and political pressure are growing across the continent, including the UK.
