Europe — Mixed Migration Flows to Europe Monthly Overview (January 2020)

A total of 8,223 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe through different land and sea routes in January 2020, almost the same trend registered in January 2019, when 8,176 sea and land arrivals were reported, and 5 per cent less than the 8,680 arrivals registered both in January 2018 and January 2017.
There were 3,963 registered arrivals via the Eastern Mediterranean route (48% of total registered arrivals in Europe) in Bulgaria and Greece in January 2020. Another 2,365 arrivals were registered via the Western Mediterranean route (29%) leading to Spain, and 1,895 were registered crossing the Central Mediterranean route (23%), arriving by sea to Italy and Malta in the same period. Hence, the Eastern Mediterranean route continues to surpass both the Western and Central Mediterranean routes as the main route taken by migrants and refugees travelling to Europe by sea and land, as it has done each month since February 2019. In January 2019, the Western Mediterranean route was recorded as the most active with 4,612 arrivals (56% of the total), followed by the Eastern Mediterranean route with 3,313 registered arrivals (41%) and the Central Mediterranean route with 251 registered arrivals (3%). In January 2018, 48 per cent of all arrivals in Europe were registered on the Central Mediterranean route (4,182), while arrivals on the Eastern Mediterranean route were 2,316 (27%) and on Western Mediterranean 2,182 (25%).

In addition to first-arrival countries, authorities in countries and areas in the Western Balkans region continue to report a decrease in monthly registrations of new migrants and refugees since October 2019. Reported registrations in January 2020 were 6,604, which is 8 per cent less than the 7,151 reported in December 2019 but more than twice as compared to the 2,746 reported in January last year and almost five times higher than the 1,383 reported in January 2018.