EUROPE-MIGRANTS/UN Over 500,000 migrants reach Greece this year, arrival rate rising, U.N. says

Record ID: 135905

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/UN Over 500,000 migrants reach Greece this year, arrival rate rising, U.N. says
  • Date: 20th October 2015
  • Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (OCTOBER 20, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS EXTERIORS OF U.N. BUILDING VARIOUS OF NEWS BRIEFING ONGOING (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNHCR CHIEF SPOKESPERSON, MELISSA FLEMING, SAYING: "In Greece, we have reached another dramatic milestone in numbers, over half a million people have arrived, the arrival yesterday of 8,000 people, bringing the total to 502,500." VARIOU
  • Embargoed: 4th November 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Switzerland
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3UBV5DCLN7834G0C24HSG4J9G
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Over half a million migrants have arrived by sea in Greece this year and the rate continues to rise, the United Nations said on Tuesday (October 20), in a rush to beat the onset of the freezing winter months.
    Europe continues to struggle with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people this year, the biggest migration movement since World War Two, many of whom are refugees fleeing war and persecution from Syria, Iraq and Eritrea.
    U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming warned that over the last few days the numbers have reached new heights.
    "In Greece, we have reached another dramatic milestone in numbers, over half a million people have arrived, the arrival yesterday of 8,000 people, bringing the total to 502,500," she said.
    As the cold weather approaches and conditions deteriorate, Fleming said that the number of fatalities has risen considerably over the last fortnight.
    "As people become more desperate to leave, we are seeing also an increase in deaths and there has been a recent wave where 19 people in the past 9 days have died in five separate incidents and almost half of these over the weekend," she said.
    Fleming said it was imperative to establish adequate conditions to receive the influx of migrants so that the European program to distribute 160,000 seekers from Italy and Greece could succeed.
    "It is of utmost importance here that reception conditions be established and be adequate to this enormous task. Without this essential element, the relocation programme that was agreed by Europe in September is in serious peril and may fail. One system can't work without the other," she said.
    So far only a first group of 19 Eritrean asylum seekers have gone to Sweden from Italy under the EU relocation scheme.
    Migrants continue to stream north through the Balkans from Greece but Hungary shut its border with Croatia on Friday and Slovenia imposed daily limits on migrants entering from Croatia, holding up thousands on cold, rain-sodden frontiers.
    In all, more than 643,000 refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year and at least 3,135 have died en route, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
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