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Almost 135,000 migrants reach EU by sea in 2016: IOM

Xinhua, March 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

Some 134,905 refugees and migrants have reached European soil by sea since the beginning of the year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday.

Figures show that 125,819 of these have landed on the Greek islands, with the remaining 9,086 reaching Italian shores.

Though still much higher than last year's arrivals over the same period, arrivals to Greece in February registered a slight dip, passing from 67,415 two months ago to 55,633 last month.

Since the start of 2015, some 970,911 migrants and refugees have arrived in Greece, suggesting that the one million threshold will be reached in the coming weeks.

To date, an estimated 418 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea this year.

By far the deadliest route, the eastern Mediterranean route separating Turkey and Greece has claimed the lives of 321 people since the start of 2016.

A further 97 migrants have died on the central Mediterranean passage linking North Africa with Italy.

IOM figures show that 505 migrants died in the first three months of last year. Endite