Brussels, 28/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - In the sixth six-monthly report on the Schengen area of free circulation Schengen (published on Thursday 27 November), the European Commission notes a sharp rise in the numbers of people illegally crossing borders into the EU.
“The overall number of detections of irregular border crossings has increased significantly over the reporting period (May-October 2014). This increase can be attributed to an unprecedented number of detections reported by Italy (nearly six times more detections by Italy in May-July 2014 compared to the same period the year before). In total, there were 81,270 detections during the first three months of the reporting period (May-July 2014, i.e. the months for which the data were available at the time of writing). This is more than 2.5 times more than during the same months in 2013, when this figure was 31,406 and even higher than during the same period in 2011,” explains the report.
The Commission explains that there are continued high levels of immigration into the EU from the Mediterranean region, with a high point reached in the summer, leading to a large loss of life and a large number of people moving in the Schengen Area from their arrival point in Italy to other member states. Italy reported by far the highest number of apprehensions in May-July 2014, followed by Greece. The main nationalities of the persons detected during those three months were Syrian and Eritrean.
The Central Mediterranean was the main route used during May-July 2014, recording a nearly five-fold increase (to more than 48,000 detections) compared to the same period in 2013. The Eastern Mediterranean route was the second most frequently used and the number of detections on this route has more than doubled on the same period in 2013, explains the Commission.
Within the Schengen Area, in May to July 2014, the level of detections of irregular stay increased by 35% compared to the same period of 2013 (up to 108,712 detections). Sweden, followed by Germany, France and Spain had the highest number of detections during this period. (SP)