In the first ten months of this year, people tried to enter the EU irregularly 331,600 times. This was the highest value for this period since 2015, as the EU border protection agency Frontex announced in Warsaw. Compared to the previous year, the number increased by 18 percent. The information is preliminary calculations. According to Frontex, there may be multiple border crossings per person.
More attempts over West Africa, fewer over the Balkans
On the West African route across the Atlantic – i.e. from Morocco, Senegal and Western Sahara to the Canary Islands – the number of entry attempts rose to 27,700, almost double the same period last year. According to the information, the highest number of entry attempts occurred on the route across the central Mediterranean, i.e. from Libya and Tunisia via Sicily and Malta: Frontex registered 143,600 attempts here. This is the highest number for this region in the first ten months of a year since 2016.
Attempted unauthorized entries on the route via the Western Balkans declined. In terms of numbers, it is second only to the route across the central Mediterranean: there were 97,300 attempts by the end of October. The decline here was 22 percent compared to the same period last year. Frontex attributes this to stricter visa regulations in the Balkan countries.
Frontex is the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. It supports the security of Europe’s external borders with personnel and technology, particularly in the member states affected by significant migration, for example in the Mediterranean region. Human rights organizations have sharply criticized Frontex for years. The organization Amnesty International, for example, complains on its website that “given the blanket approach of Frontex operations to push people back, it cannot be checked whether there are refugees among them who are entitled to protection in the EU.”
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), at least 2,468 people have been reported missing in the Mediterranean region so far in 2023. The majority tried to escape to Europe via the Mediterranean route.