U.N. Says Over 218,000 Migrants Arrived in Europe By Sea in October

As many migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in October as in the whole of 2014, the United Nations refugee agency said on Monday.

A total of 218,394 arrived on European shores, a monthly record that outstripped September’s 172,843, Reuters reports. More than half of them have fled the civil war in Syria, and 18 percent of the total are from Afghanistan.

About 219,000 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe by sea in all of 2014.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokesperson said the figures “also shows the just astonishing amount of arrivals in just a few days during the course of the month. The month peaked at 10,006 (arrivals in Greece alone) on a single day, on Oct. 20.”

The vast majority travelled to Greece from Turkey, while the former favorite route was from Libya to Italy.

[Reuters]

Subscribe to TIME

Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now.

Please enter a valid email address.

* The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again.

Sign Up Now

An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later.

Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies.

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you!

For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Contact us at letters@time.com.