Western Balkans, Mediterranean – In 2022, the number of illegal EU entries will increase

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Significantly more refugees and migrants entered the European Union without authorization this year than in 2021. The EU border control agency Frontex registered around 308,000 border crossings in the first eleven months of this year. That is an increase of 68 percent compared to the same period last year. The Warsaw-based authority spoke of the highest value in the first eleven months since 2016.

While many countries increased their anti-immigration measures, the numbers went up again. The most active route was across the Western Balkans, where about 140,000 crossings were recorded.

That was two and a half times as much as in 2021 and the highest value since the 2015 refugee crisis.

98,000 boat migrants arrived in Italy
Italy also recorded significantly more arrivals, with the Interior Ministry counting more than 98,000 boat migrants in mid-December; from January to December 2021 there were more than 63,000. About 17,000 people have arrived in Greece and Cyprus so far this year – there too there were significantly fewer in the same period last year.

2,000 migrants died in the Mediterranean
Many people from Africa, the Near and Middle East or Southeast Asia are leaving their homeland because they hope for a better life in Europe. They are often driven out by climatic conditions, conflicts or rulers. They often venture perilous crossings across the Mediterranean to Greece, Italy or Spain – nearly 2,000 migrants died in the Mediterranean in December, a good 1,360 between North Africa and Italy alone, according to the UN’s Organization for Migration (IOM).

Giorgia Meloni will see the blockade
For the “International Day of Migrants” this Sunday, some politicians are calling for even stricter measures against illegal immigrants: Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) is demanding money from the EU for border fences in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. He wants to “break through the taboo fences”, as he said. Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has already campaigned for a naval blockade in the Mediterranean and migrant camps in Africa.

In Poland, at least, fences have already had their effect: in June, a 187-kilometer-long border fence with Belarus was completed. Still, 14,900 migrants crossed the border illegally from January to November – nearly 40,000 by 2021.

Source: Krone

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