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]

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