Refugee Flow to Europe over the Mediterranean Sea halved. The number of people trying to flee across the Mediterranean to Europe has more than split in the opening half of 2018 compared to a year earlier.
Shown by figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
At the beginning of this year, 46.449 migrants were counted. In the same period in 2017, there were slightly more than 101,000.
That was a great halving compared to 2016 when 231,000 people tried to cross the Mediterranean. The trip over water remains very dangerous. 1,412 refugees died this year. In 2017, that number was 2,340 until July.
The decline in Italy is even stronger, says the spokesman for the IOM, Flavio Di Giacomo.
According to him, the number of migrants entering that country has dropped by 80 percent compared to 2017, and the trend of declining numbers is still accelerating.