More than 800,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, the UN said Friday, warning the Greek island of Lesbos especially was overstretched, with thousands, including young children, forced to sleep outside.
Since January, 806,000 people have made the perilous sea journey to Europe, with some 660,700 of them arriving in Greece and 142,400 landing in Italy, new figures from the UN refugee agency showed.
Around 3,460 people have died trying to reach the continent, it said.
While the overall number of arrivals is high, the numbers moving through Lesbos are staggering, UNHCR said, describing a continuing chaotic situation on the Greek island which still has the capacity to accommodate only a fraction of the people pouring in by the thousands.
“With winter approaching, reception conditions and capacity there remain overstretched and inadequate,” spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters, pointing out that many people, including women, children and even new-born babies were stuck out in the open.
More than half of all those arriving in Greece this year have landed on the island, reports AFP.
Despite colder weather and worsening conditions at sea, an average of 3,300 people arrived each day in November.
Some 16,000 refugees and migrants are currently on the island, which still only has the capacity to accommodate 2,800 people at a time, UNHCR said.
Aegean acrimony
Greece’s migration minister on Friday said refugee smuggling in Turkey was conducted in “broad daylight” as he called on the EU to step up relocation plans.
“The entries (from Turkey) are happening in an organised fashion,” junior interior minister for migration Yiannis Mouzalas told a news conference.
“It is happening in broad daylight, with villages gathering around to watch the refugees being put in boats by the traffickers. There is no secrecy in this,” he said, citing evidence from Turkish media and the Greek coastguard.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will travel to Turkey next week to press the country’s leaders to take a stronger stance against refugee traffickers, says AFP.
Turkey “is spending a lot of money, it is holding three million refugees on its soil, but we believe it has the ability and it must acquire the will to stop the flows from its coasts,” Mouzalas said.
Britain pledges 100 pounds a head
Britain has committed 275 million pounds ($420 million) to a planned European Union fund designed to help Turkey accommodate the more than two million Syrian refugees it is hosting, the British government said on Friday.
Prime Minister David Cameron made the commitment during a summit in Malta this week which was aimed at seeking ways to stem a chaotic flow of migrants that threatens Europe’s unity and open borders.
Spread over the next two years, the commitment will go towards helping Turkey support and improve conditions for refugees, a government spokesperson said.
Leaders of the Group of 20 major economies (G20) are to meet on Sunday and Monday in Turkey to discuss economic issues, with Syria’s war, migration and the fight against terrorism expected to force their way onto the agenda.
Austrian fence undercuts Schengen
Austria announced Friday it would erect a 3.7 kilometre (2.3 mile) metal fence along its border with Slovenia, in a new blow to the EU’s cherished open-border Schengen accord.
The barrier, due to be completed in less than six weeks, will be the first fence between two members of the passport-free zone, as Europe battles with a record influx of migrants and refugees, reports AFP.
Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner insisted the “fence conforms to the Schengen accord”, adding it was part of temporary measures aimed at “channelling” the human flow.
“We are talking here about an ordered inflow and not a barrier,” Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann’s chief of staff, Josef Ostermayer, told reporters in Vienna.
The move came a day after European Union President Donald Tusk warned that Schengen – one of the bloc’s most important achievements – was on the brink of collapse as a result of fallout from the migration crisis.
