{"id":4647,"date":"2015-06-10T08:49:34","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T07:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=4647"},"modified":"2015-06-10T08:49:34","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T07:49:34","slug":"med-migrant-crossings-to-europe-top-100000-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/med-migrant-crossings-to-europe-top-100000-un\/","title":{"rendered":"Med migrant crossings to Europe top 100,000 : UN"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Migrants\"<\/a>More than 100,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, the United Nations said Tuesday in what it called a \u201cdramatic increase\u201d in arrivals.
\nSince the beginning of the year, 103,000 refugees and migrants have risked their lives often on flimsy boats to reach Europe, the UN refugee agency said.
\nA full 54,000 have landed in Italy and 48,000 in Greece, while another 920 have arrived in Spain and 91 in Malta, according to fresh statistics.
\nThey were the lucky ones. Mass drownings in the Mediterranean have claimed nearly 1,800 lives so far this year.
\nUNHCR \u201cis stepping up its presence in Greece and in southern Italy in response to the dramatic increase in numbers of refugees and migrants who we have been seeing arriving,\u201d spokesman Adrian Edwards told journalists in Geneva.
\nThe latest numbers included the nearly 6,000 people, most of them sub-Saharan Africans, plucked to safety from packed fishing boats and rubber dinghies off Libya and brought to Italy over the weekend.
\nPregnant women and children were among those rescued, Edwards said.
\nHe voiced particular concern over the exploding number of migrants and refugees reaching Greece, which saw just 34,000 arrivals during the full year of 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.
\nThere has been a surge in migrants trying to reach Greece\u2019s Aegean islands from the Turkish coast recently, mirroring the swell in perilous crossings from north Africa to Italy.
\nThe Greek islands have been receiving an average of 600 people daily, mainly fleeing from conflict-torn Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, with around half of them landing on the island of Lesvos, Edwards said.
\n\u201cRecord numbers of refugees are continuing to arrive in rubber dinghies and wooden boats on Lesvos, putting huge strain on the island\u2019s capacity and resources,\u201d he said, warning that reception facilities were vastly overstretched.
\nUNHCR, he said, was calling for \u201curgent reinforcement of personnel and resources of all the state services and civil society organizations dealing with the reception of refugees.\u201d
\n\u201cWe are also seeking increased support to the affected island communities,\u201d he said.
\nGreek authorities say hundreds of people using small boats and dinghies have arrived over the past day on eastern Aegean islands near the Turkish coast, part of a surge of tens of thousands of migrants landing on Greek shores in recent months.<\/p>\n

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