The UN Migration Agency reports that 43,357 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2017 through 26 April, over 80 percent arriving in Italy and the rest in Spain and Greece. This compares with 182,022 arrivals through 26 April 2016.
IOM Greece reported on Thursday that authorities have no new information about as many as 12 missing migrants who were believed to have been on a boat that capsized off Lesvos earlier this week. IOM had reported seven migrants still missing from the incident in which two survivors were rescued – one an expectant mother.
Worldwide, the IOM Missing Migrants Project reports that there have been 1,633 fatalities through 26 April (see chart, below), with the Mediterranean region accounting for the largest proportion of deaths – about two thirds of the global total. Nonetheless, this comes to 620 fewer fatalities than were reported up to the same point in 2016. However, these data do not account for full reporting from North Africa and the Horn of Africa, two migration corridors where data collection tends to take longer than in other regions. Read full report.
