adminGENEVA/PARIS. – One in every 42 migrants who crossed the Central Mediterranean route separating North Africa and Italy has died this year, up from one in every 52 in 2015, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported yesterday. “This makes 2016 to date the deadliest year on record in the Central Mediterranean,” the agency said in a statement.“The chances of dying on the Libya to Italy route are ten times higher than when crossing from Turkey to Greece,” it added.
According to latest International Organisation for Migration (IOM) figures, 278 327 migrants and refugees have reached European shores by sea through the first eight months of 2016.
IOM’s fatality count shows that 2 731 migrants have perished on the central Mediterranean passage, compared to 386 on the Eastern Mediterranean route separating Turkey and Greece.
A further 54 individuals have drowned on the Western Mediterranean and Western African routes.
All these figures are substantially higher than 2015’s death toll over the same period.
Meanwhile, the “Jungle” camp in the northern French town of Calais, home to thousands of migrants hoping to reach Britain, will be dismantled in stages, the country’s interior minister pledged on Thursday.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told the Nord Littoral regional newspaper that he would press ahead with the closure “with the greatest determination”, gradually dismantling the site while also creating accommodation for thousands elsewhere in France “to unblock Calais”.
French authorities have made repeated efforts to shut down the infamous “Jungle” camp, which authorities say is currently home to nearly 7 000 migrants – a sharp increase in recent months.
Some aid groups have put the figure much higher. According to a census by French NGOs l’Auberge des Migrants and Help Refugees between August 6 and 9, some 2 000 migrants arrived at the camp in July. This, according to their statistics, increased the population by 29 percent bringing it to approximately 9 106 people. Of those, 865 are minors, and 676 of these are unaccompanied.
Most of the refugees and migrants in the Calais camp come from conflict zones like Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq or other countries with poor human rights records, and have come to Calais with the hope of crossing the English Channel to Britain.
Their aim is to smuggle themselves onto lorries boarding the Eurotunnel or the numerous ferries heading to England, where many have relatives or hope to find work. – Agencies.
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