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1st LD Writethru: Number of refugees and irregular migrants to Europe in 2015 reaches 1 million: UN

Xinhua, December 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Persecution, conflict and poverty have forced an unprecedented 1 million people to flee to Europe in 2015, the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced Tuesday in a joint statement.

As of December 21, some 972,500 had crossed the Mediterranean Sea, and another 34,000 have crossed from Turkey into Bulgaria and Greece by land, making the total number surpassing 1 million, according to the statement.

UNHCR pointed out that the number of people displaced by war and conflict is the highest seen in Western and Central Europe since the 1990s, when several conflicts broke out in the former Yugoslavia.

One-in-every-two of those crossing the Mediterranean this year, half a million people, were Syrians escaping the war in their country, while Afghans accounted for 20 percent and Iraqis for 7 percent, UNHCR said.

"As anti-foreigner sentiments escalate in some quarters, it is important to recognize the positive contributions that refugees and migrants make to the societies in which they live and also honour core European values: protecting lives, upholding human rights and promoting tolerance and diversity," UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres noted.

"Migration must be legal, safe and secure for all, both for the migrants themselves and the countries that will become their new home," William Lacy Swing, Director General of IOM, said.

According to the figures in the joint statement, over 800,000 refugees and migrants came via the Aegean Sea from Turkey into Greece, accounting for 80 percent of the people arriving irregularly in Europe by sea this year.

At the same time, the number of people crossing from North Africa into Italy dropped slightly, from 170,000 in 2014 to around 150,000 in 2015.

The number of people crossing the Mediterranean increased steadily from around 5,500 in January to reach a monthly peak in October of over 221,000, the statement said, adding that at the same time, more than 3,600 people died or went missing. Enditem