One million migrants reached Europe by land and sea in 2015 fleeing conflicts and persecution, the UN refugee agency said today in what is the biggest movement of people in the continent since World War II.
According to UNHCR, some 972,500 migrants had crossed the Mediterranean Sea in 2015 (as of December 21) in addition to the International Organisation of Migration's (IOM) calculation of over 34,000 crossings from Turkey into Bulgaria and Greece by land.
Syrians accounted for about half a million people — or every one in two — crossing the Mediterranean in 2015.