One and a half million people came because of the refugee crisis this year

The number of illegal border crossings reached 1.55 million at the European Union’s external borders in the first 11 month of the year, according to the data of the European Border Agency called Frontex. Although fewer people came due to the bad weather in November, it is still higher than last year’s total, hvg.hu wrote.

276 thousand illegal border crossings were registered by Frontex and its associated bodies only in November, this is slightly less than in the last year – then 283 thousand people crossed the borders of the EU – Frontex announced at its press conference in Warsaw on Tuesday. Due to the bad weather conditions around the Mediterranean Sea and the tighter border controls on the Western Balkan route, the number of refugees arriving in Greece fell by half, to 108 thousand people, compared to the previous month. During the first 11 months of this year, a total of 715 thousand people undertook the dangerous sea crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands, which is 16 times higher than it was measured in the same period of last year. The largest share arriving were Syrians, who were followed by the Afghans and the Iraqis.

According to hvg.hu, on the Western Balkan route, the number of illegal border crossings fell by one fifth, to 164 thousand people compared to the October data. A total of 667 thousand people passed through the route in 11 months, which is 22 times higher than the amount of the same period in the last year.