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More migrants are likely to risk dangerous, undocumented land or sea crossings into Europe this year than at the height of the Arab spring, according to the agency that monitors the EU's external borders.
With numbers boosted by Syrians and Libyans fleeing the bloody chaos in their countries, there had been almost as many illegal border crossings counted in 2014 as there were in the whole of 2011, said Frontex.
"When you add up the numbers they seem even higher than during the Arab spring," said Ewa Moncure, from the Warsaw-based agency. "Then, the total number of illegal border crossings was 140,000. We're now already approaching that for this year."
This year could see another grim testament to the risks people are prepared to take to get to Europe: a unprecedented number of recorded deaths. In July, the UN refugee agency said more than 800 people had died in the Mediterranean, including more than 260 in a 10-day period. There were 600 such deaths in total last year.
The UNHCR said Italy had, by July, received almost 64,000 people, including 10,500 children – 6,500 of whom, mainly Eritreans, were either unaccompanied or had been separated from their families.
Frontex, which was set up nine years ago, said there had been more than 98,000 illegal border crossings in the year to mid-August using the central Mediterranean route into Europe, covering Italy and Malta, more than double the number for all of last year. This, of course, only covers entries that are detected.
It was "a huge increase", said Moncure. The central Mediterranean was the traditional route from Africa, but, as well as people from Eritrea, Somalia, and West Africa, there had been lots from Syria and Libya. "Libya is a country with very little border control, a very long coastline, and a quite efficient facilitation of people smuggling," Moncure added.
Another route is the east Mediterranean, primarily the sea and land border between Greece and Turkey, but also from Turkey to Bulgaria. More than 20,000 people travelled this way in the year to mid-August.Almost 25,000 were recorded in 2013.
"That's a substantial increase," said Moncure. "There are many Syrians, but there's also other nationalities. This is the traditional route for migrants from Asia, including Afghanistan and Pakistan."
The other main routes are from North Africa to Spain or Portugal, often via the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, where about 5,000 people have crossed this year (against 6,800 for 2013), and the western Balkans, where the numbers so far, about 7,000, are down on last year.
While the routes change little, their respective popularity does change, for all sorts of reasons, not only fleeing war. "There are many factors involved - where the migrants are coming from, but also what's the easiest way to facilitate their movements, the routes that people smugglers have worked out as the best or the most lucrative," said Moncure. "And of course if there's a border that's strengthened in one place, like in 2012 when the Greek authorities put 2,000 more people at the border, that became less popular."
By far, the greatest number by nationality last year was Syrians – 25,500, almost a quarter of the total. According to UNHCR statistics from May, more than 123,000 Syrians sought asylum in Europe since 2011. This was, the agency noted, a relatively small proportion of all Syrian refugees, with almost 800,000 registered in Turkey alone.
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