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

A total of 1,658 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe through different land and sea routes in April 2020, which is 55 per cent less than the 3,686 registered in the previous month (March 2020), more than 3 times less than the 5,675 sea and land arrivals registered in April last year, almost 7.5 times less than the 12,254 arrivals registered in April 2018, and almost 10 times less than the 15,746 reported in April 2017.
Arrivals registered in Europe in the first four months of 2020 were 20,299, which is 14 per cent less than arrivals registered in the same period last year (23,564) and 36 per cent less than arrivals between January and April of 2018 (31,881).
There were 824 arrivals registered on the Western Mediterranean route (50%) leading to Spain2 in April 2020. Another 737 were registered on the Central Mediterranean route (44%), arriving by sea to Italy and Malta in the same period and 97 were registered in Bulgaria and Greece through the Eastern Mediterranean route (only 6% of total registered arrivals in Europe). Hence, this is the first-time since February 2019 Eastern Mediterranean route is surpassed by both the Western and Central Mediterranean routes as the main route taken by migrants and refugees travelling to Europe by sea and land. In the same reporting period of the last year (April 2019), the Eastern Mediterranean route was recorded as the most active route with 3,877 arrivals (68% of the total), followed by the Western Mediterranean route with 1,479 registered arrivals (26%) and the Central Mediterranean route with 319 registered arrivals (6%). In April 2018, 60 per cent of all arrivals in Europe were registered on the Eastern Mediterranean route (7377), while arrivals on the on Central Mediterranean were 3,171 (26%) and on Western Mediterranean route 1,706 (14%).