At Least 1,000 Migrants Die, Go Missing in Mediterranean Sea over Past Week
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – At least a thousand people died or went missing in the Mediterranean Sea over past week trying to reach Europe, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement.
Earlier on Tuesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said more than 880 migrants had died in several shipwrecks while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea by boat over the last week.
"The past eight days marks one of the deadliest periods yet in the migration crisis, which is now in its fourth year," the statement, published on the IOM website Tuesday, reads, according to Sputnik.
Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing crisis-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa, trying to escape violence and poverty. The majority of them cross the Mediterranean Sea and arrive in the European Union using southern EU nations as transit points.
According to the IOM, since the beginning of 2016, over 204,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean Sea, while 2,443 have died or gone missing during the journey.
