On 22 June, Frontex indicated in new statistics that the number of illegal crossings at Europe’s external borders nearly doubled over the course of the first five months of 2021 compared to the same period in 2020, with more than 47,100 crossings—that being 47% more than the total a year ago.
In May, the number of illegal border crossings reached 10,500—more than double the figure for the same month last year; 4,200 of these were in the central Mediterranean (double). Between January and May 2021, the total number of illegal crossings on this route doubled to over 15,700. For the western Mediterranean, more than 1,350 detections of illegal border crossings were recorded in May—a number that has also doubled compared to May 2020. “The total for the first five months of 2021 stood at more than 4,550, or 21% higher than in the same period in the previous year.” Finally, for the eastern Mediterranean, fewer than 1,400 detections of illegal crossings were reported in May, but this is three times more than the same month last year. Yet, between January and May, the total number of detections fell by almost half to 6,200.
Link to the statistics: https://bit.ly/2SXETUq (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)