Europe — Mixed Migration Flows to Europe Monthly Overview (October 2019)

A total of 103,416 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe through different land and sea routes between January and October 2019, 18 per cent less than the same period of 2018 when 125,840 sea and land arrivals were reported, 37 per cent less than the 164,433 arrivals registered in this period of 2017 and 71 per cent less than the 354,971 registered during this period in 2016.
There were 63,433 registered arrivals via the Eastern Mediterranean route (61% of all arrivals to Europe) in Cyprus, Bulgaria and Greece between January and October 2019. Another 27,219 arrivals were registered via the Western Mediterranean route (27%) leading to Spain in the same period, and 12,764 were registered crossing the Central Mediterranean route (12%), arriving by sea to Italy and Malta. This indicates that 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 since February 2019. In the same period of 2018, the Western route was recorded as the most active with 54,099 arrivals (43%). On the Eastern route, in 2018, there were 48,677 registered arrivals (39%) and the on Central route there were 23,064 registered arrivals (18%).