EU boasts that number of migrants arriving in Greece drops by 90%

EU boasts that number of migrants arriving in Greece drops by 90% - while ignoring UN report saying more now arrive in ITALY since Macedonia closed its borders

The EU claims Turkey deal has helped reduce numbers entering Greece

But the UN says Italy had three times as many entry attempts last month

This may be due to the border closures enacted among the Balkan states

By COREY CHARLTON FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 13:46 GMT, 13 May 2016 | UPDATED: 16:18 GMT, 13 May 2016

The EU has boasted the number of migrants arriving in Greece has dropped by 90 percent but is ignoring the fact vast numbers are now pouring into Italy.

Claiming the reduction was due to its agreement with Turkey, the EU said the 'dramatic' change showed asylum seeker numbers last month were much lower than last year.

However, this may be due to the Greek borders with the Balkan states are closed - forcing many to turn to Italy as their proxy state to enter Europe.

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The EU claims the number of migrants arriving in Greece has reduced but thousands are still trying to r
each Europe by boat. Pictured is an inflatable boat of asylum seekers on a sinking ship in April

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The UN says more than 9,000 asylum seekers arrived in Italy last month - almost three times that which
reached Greece. Pictured here is a group of migrants arriving in the Sicilian port of Palermo

The UN says more than 9,000 arrived in Italy last month, compared with just 3,600 in Greece - the first time this has happened since May 2015.

Frontex, the EU's border agency, said today that fewer than 2,700 people had entered Greece in April.

It put the drop down to the effect of the EU's migrant agreement with Turkey and tight border controls at the Greek Macedonia border.

Fabrice Leggeri, the Frontex chief, said 'the drop in the number of arrivals on the Greek islands was dramatic'.

He said April's total was well below the daily figure arriving on the island of Lesbos alone during the peak months last year.

The agency said the number of migrants traveling along the Balkans route from Greece north toward preferred destinations in Austria, Germany and Scandinavia had also dropped as a result.

Meanwhile, Italy's coastguard said it helped rescue 801 migrants from two boats off western Sicily yesterday, including many Syrians, amid signs that refugees from the Middle East are increasingly shunning the Greek route into Europe.

More than a million migrants, many from Syria, have entered Europe via Turkey and Greece in the past year but the number has fallen sharply since March, when Ankara agreed with the European Union to take back refugees landing on the Greek islands.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said the two boats, which were also carrying some Iraqis, represented the largest such attempted mass migration from Syria and Iraq to Italy for at least a year.

An Italian coastguard statement said 515 people had been plucked from one boat and a further 286 people rescued in another operation involving a Finnish naval vessel.

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The EU claims its new agreement with Turkey is the reason why fewer migrants are entering Greece

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However, the borders to Macedonia have been closed since March, causing a blockage among those
arriving in Greece and hoping to travel the Balkan route

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Other security measures in the Balkans involve extra fencing between countries, such as this imposing
barbed wire barrier between Greece and Macedonia

A coastguard spokesman said most of those taken to safety in the first operation were Syrian, while he was unable to give the nationalities of those saved from the second boat.

Another coastguard spokesman had previously said the second operation had rescued around 380 people.

UNHCR spokeswoman Carlotta Sami said the Syrians and Iraqis had set sail from Egypt rather than Libya, the launchpad for most migrants heading to Italy.

As of May 10, 31,250 migrants had reached Italy by boat this year, a 14 percent decline from the same period last year, according to the Interior Ministry.

The vast majority came from African countries, led by Nigeria, Gambia, Somalia and the African Coast.

In addition to the European Union's repatriation deal with Turkey, Balkan nations, Hungary and Austria have tightened border controls in an attempt to deter the migrants entering from Greece. Most who take the Balkan route head to Germany.

EU boasts that number of migrants arriving in Greece drops by 90% | Daily Mail Online

Lone child migrants arriving in Europe double: Unicef

2016-06-14 23:08

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Geneva - The number of unaccompanied child migrants has more than doubled this year making the notoriously dangerous Mediterranean crossing aboard unseaworthy boats, Unicef said in a new report on Tuesday.

Entitled "Danger every step of the way", the Unicef report said nine out of every 10 children arriving in Italy were unaccompanied minors, noting that more than 7 000 of them had arrived in the first five months of the year.

Unaccompanied and separated children are at particular risk of abuse and exploitation, notably by the smugglers they rely on to get to Europe, Unicef said.

"Just about every child who arrives on the Italian island of Lampedusa or in Sicily has a harrowing story to tell," the report said.

Both boys and girls are subjected to sexual violence and forced into prostitution. Some of the girls are pregnant by the time they arrive on European shores.

"During the crossing, several people fell overboard and drowned, and others inside the boat fainted and died. I was even sitting down with dead bodies and I was scared," 17-year-old Nigerian orphan Peace said in the Unicef report.

She had fled Nigeria to escape an arranged marriage to a 40-year-old.

"I wish my friend had told me this is how difficult it is. I would have continued suffering in Nigeria," she added.

There is concern over a sharp increase in Nigerian women and girls leaving Libya for Italy, with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimating 80% of them are victims of trafficking.

"If you try to run they shoot you and you die. If you stop working, they beat you. It was just like the slave trade," 16-year-old Aimamo told Unicef of the farm in Libya where he and his twin brother worked for two months to pay the smugglers.

'Children bear no responsibility'

Since the first of the year, 2 859 people have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, many of them children, according to the IOM.

The IOM figure for the whole of last year was 3 770.

"The reason we are seeing more [unaccompanied children] is not clear at this stage," Unicef's Sarah Crowe told a press conference in Geneva.

"We should never forget that children on the move are first and foremost children, who bear no responsibility for their plight, and have every right to a better life," said Marie-Pierre Poirier, Unicef's special co-ordinator for Europe's migrant crisis.

Tens of thousands of children are in danger each day and hundreds of thousands more are ready to risk everything to make the journey, the agency said.

And with the arrival of summer in Europe, the numbers of those risking the Mediterranean crossing from Africa and the Middle East are set to rise, it warned.

There are currently 235 000 refugees and migrants in Libya and some 956 000 in the Sahel countries, and "many - if not most - of them" are hoping to make their way to Europe, the Unicef report said.

'War, persecution, deprivation'

Unicef also voiced concern over the number of these migrant children who prefer not to register themselves upon their arrival in Europe, choosing instead to continue their journey through Europe and falling prey to criminal gangs.

Unaccompanied children need special protection and attention, both from the countries they leave and those where they arrive, said Poirier.

"Every country - those the children leave, those they cross and those in which they seek asylum - has an obligation to establish protection systems focused on the risks that unaccompanied children face."
Children on the move "have endured war, persecution, deprivation and terrible journeys", she said.

"Even when they have reached the relative safety of their destination, they still need protection, education, healthcare and counselling. We must be by their side."

Lone child migrants arriving in Europe double: Unicef | News24

UNICEF: 9 in 10 children migrants to Italy unaccompanied

1:15 AM Wednesday Jun 15, 2016


GENEVA (AP) " UNICEF says most of the children migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy this year were unaccompanied by adults, making them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

The children's agency says 92 percent of some 7,600 children who made the dangerous and often deadly crossing between January and May were unaccompanied minors, up from 68 percent in the same span last year, when 4,566 children crossed.

Spokeswoman Sarah Crowe told reporters Tuesday in Geneva that most were boys aged 15 to 17, and came from Somalia, Nigeria and Eritrea. She said boys and girls have faced prostitution, pedophilia rings and gangsterism. She said it's unclear why more minors are arriving unaccompanied.

Migration watcher IOM says that as of Sunday, 210,000 migrants had crossed the Mediterranean this year.

UNICEF Says 9 of 10 Children Migrants to Italy Unaccompanied ...

Send them back into the care and custody of THEIR government!