Alwaght- The UN Migration Agency says up to 2,839 migrants have so far died trying to reach Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.
In a statement on Friday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said “Deaths in the Mediterranean Sea continue to account for a majority of the world’s migrant fatalities - now up to 2,839 for the year, or nearly 60 percent of the 2017 total.”
Last year at this time the region recorded deaths of 4,150 migrants.
IOM further noted that some 150,982 refugees have entered Europe by the Mediterranean route so far in 2017 compared with 335,158 refugee arrivals in Europe through the same period last year.
Nonetheless, this year may shape up as the first year since 2013 that Mediterranean Sea crossings by migrants fell short of the 200,000 threshold. Just counting arrivals in Italy and Greece, totals were around 204,000 in 2014 and doubling to 355,000 in 2016 after cresting past one million (1,007,000) in 2015.
Aid workers have accused the EU of “willfully letting people drown in the Mediterranean” as they face being forced to suspend rescue missions for refugees attempting the world’s deadliest sea crossing.
Libya’s disintegration into a cluster of chaotic internal conflicts due to US-led NATO's interference, has made the country’s vast Mediterranean coast a choice route used by human traffickers moving thousands of disparate African migrants to Europe.
