European coastguard and border guard agency Frontex published new figures on Thursday 13 July on migration numbers, showing that more than 30,700 illegal migrant arrivals were detected in June on the four main routes into the EU.
The total number of detected migrants in the first six months of 2017 is 68% lower than during the same period of 2016, falling to around 116,000 but the number of illegal migrants arriving in Italy and Spain is higher than last year.
For the central Mediterranean, the number of migrants arriving in Italy rose in June by 8% to 24,800, bringing the total for the first half of 2017 to 85,000, 21% more than in the first half of 2016.
In June, it was Niger and Guinea that made up the greatest number of detected migrants in the central Mediterranean route. In the first half of 2017, Niger also provided the greatest number of arrivals, followed by people from Bangladesh, Guinea and Ivory Coast.
Code of conduct for NGOs
A number of news channels report that on the same day, the Italian authorities were due to finalise a code of conduct for NGOs aiding migrants in the Mediterranean.
The eleven-point code of conduct, of which this newsletter saw a provisional version on 6 July (see EUROPE 11824), includes measures to ban telephone calls or light signals that people-traffickers could interpret as giving the go-ahead for landing boats of would-be immigrants; - making the presence of police officers compulsory on NGO boats and banning the transfer of rescued migrants to other vessels. The last measure would force NGOs to transport people to port themselves, which would limit their operations.
NGOs would have to sign the code of conduct or be refused landing at Italy’s ports. International NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have expressed concern, fearing that thousands of lives could be put at risk. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)