New data from the Frontex agency published on Tuesday 14 January reveal a significant 38% drop in irregular border crossings in the EU in 2024, reaching the lowest level since 2021, when migration was still affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a press release.
“Intensified EU and partner cooperation against smuggling networks has significantly reduced crossings at Europe’s external borders, with just over 239,000 detections recorded last year”.
This drop “was mainly driven by a 59% plunge in arrivals via the Central Mediterranean route and a 78% fall in detections on the Western Balkan route”.
There were, however, increases on the Eastern Mediterranean route (up 14% to 69,400 via new corridors from eastern Libya) and on the Western African route (the Canary Islands recorded an 18% increase in arrivals to almost 47,000, the highest figure since data was first collected in 2009).
Further information: https://aeur.eu/f/f0t (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)