Number of people arriving by sea to Greece so far in 2015 tops 500,000: UN refugee agency

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday the number of people who have arrived by sea to Greece so far this year has topped half a million, with 8,000 people arriving on Monday, a UN spokesman told reporters here.

"It said that many refugees and migrants are desperate to move quickly onwards to Western Europe, fearing that borders ahead of them will close," Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, said at a daily news briefing here.

"The spike in the number of arrivals is sharply increasing reception pressures on Greece, and the Agency said that it is important that reception conditions be adequate to the task," Haq said.

Without this essential element, the relocation programme agreed by Europe in September is in serious peril and may fail, the UNHCR warned.

The total number of refugees and migrants to reach Europe so far this year via the Mediterranean is now over 643,000, he said.

As of Tuesday morning, there were more than 27,500 people on the Aegean Islands, either awaiting registration or onward transport to the mainland.

Additional police had to be called in on Sunday and Monday to provide security on the islands, where frustration amongst refugees and migrants boiled over at a reception centre on Lesvos last week, leading to the evacuation of UNHCR staff and the temporary suspension of processing.

Borders along the Balkan routes have recently reopened. On the Serbian border with Croatia, some 3,000 people were left waiting in the rain in the past two days without shelter and with minimal assistance on hand.

While conditions at some crossing points in the Balkans remain difficult, movement has resumed, with 4,300 people arriving in Austria from Slovenia on Monday.

Meanwhile, in Austria and Germany, tens of thousands of refugees and migrants are sleeping in tents and temporary shelters because of accommodation shortages.

At least 19 people, including infants and children, have died crossing the Aegean to Greece from Turkey in the past nine days in five separate incidents, almost half of them over the weekend, the UNHCR said.

Refugees that UNHCR officials spoke to over the weekend reported that smugglers were offering discounts rates for crossings in bad weather and packing more people onto boats for the crossing, which frequently proves fatal.

At least 123 people have died or gone missing in Greek territorial waters so far this year. In total, at least 3,135 have perished in the Mediterranean to date in 2015.

To address the current situation in Europe, the UNHCR said that various stabilization measures are needed.

These include strong support to countries hosting the vast majority of Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan refugees, an information campaign informing of the dangers of the sea journey, and the development of legal pathways to seek protection in Europe, it said. Enditem