Europe — Mixed Migration Flows to Europe Monthly Overview (November 2017)

Between January and November 2017, there were 176,042 sea and land arrivals to Europe. 93% of migrants and asylum seekers have crossed the Mediterranean and were registered in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Spain (164,754). The remaining 7% (11,288) are counted as land arrivals to Greece, Bulgaria and Spain. This represents a 53% decrease compared to the numbers available for the same period in 2016 (total 375,892), and a 80% decrease in comparison to registered arrivals between January and November 2015 (app. 902, 666). When looking at trends on a country level, the most significant decrease has been observed in arrivals to Greece and Bulgaria. Greece had received 81% less migrants this year, compared to 2016 (174,992). Decrease in arrivals is even more significant if taken into account the registered arrivals in 2015 when 747, 977 migrants and asylum seekers reached its territory. Arrivals to Bulgaria plummeted this year continuing the decline caused by the closure of the Western Balkans route. Namely, between January and November 2017, Bulgarian authorities registered 629 new migrants arriving from Turkey, at least twenty times less than in 2016 (15,283) and approximately fifteen times lower than the figure available for the end of November 2015 (9,869). 117, 036 arrivals to Italy, are the lowest number reported in the past 4 years, showing a 32% decrease compared to 173,008 registered at the end of November 2016. In contrast to that, data for Spain and Cyprus indicate a significant increase. There were 25,141 new arrivals to Spain this year, which is more than twofold increase when correlated with 11,910 reported by the end of November 2016. Further on, 1,029 migrants and asylum seekers landed on Cyprus this year, five times more than in 2016 (189).