For the European Union, 2023 has been the year of shielding. The year in which borders have been sealed even more and policies have been approved to facilitate the deportation of those who managed to avoid the fortress europe with the aim of reducing irregular entries of migrants. But these measures have not yet produced the expected results: at least 281,431 people clandestinely accessed the EU in the last 12 months48% more than the previous year, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as of December 31.
The main access point has been Italy, with 57% of all arrivals. At least 3,863 people perished in the attempt to cross a European border, according to the same organization, which relies on testimonies from survivors and relatives to make its calculations.
The final figure for 2023 is the highest recorded since the 2015 crisis, but not close, since that year more than a million people entered irregularly in what was the largest human displacement into European territory since World War II. Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesperson for the IOM Mediterranean Coordination Office, does not believe that this is a “migration emergency”, as certain European media and politicians warn. “In Italy, even, the increase is not worrying because we have seen these numbers in the past and they were not considered an emergency. They represent 0.26% of the Italian population and 0.03% of the EU population,” he contextualizes. “It is a very Eurocentric vision, because 85% of African migration occurs within Africa itself,” he adds.
The EU grants around three million different stay permits annually, so migrants who enter without papers represent only around 8% of the foreigners who arrive each year.
To this number of non-EU citizens we must also add the 4.3 million beneficiaries of temporary protection who fled Ukraine after Russia's large-scale invasion in 2022. “When the war started, six million Ukrainians arrived in three months and no one said that this was an immigration emergency; On the contrary, Europe responded very efficiently,” recalls Di Giacomo.
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The bulk of arrivals to the EU occur through the sea, mainly through the Mediterranean on all its fronts: western, towards the Iberian Peninsula; eastern, towards Greece, and central, towards Italy. 252,942 people managed to reach European coasts after dangerous journeys in metal or wooden boats. The remaining 28,489 entered by land.
One of the last to join the count of new arrivals was Hamza. Originally from Daraa, where he sparked the Syrian revolution, this 25-year-old Sociology graduate entrusted 4,500 euros to a Libyan trafficker to get on a barge. In the early hours of December 29, he sent a message to a relative in Spain to inform him that he had been taken along with a hundred other people to a beach and that it seemed that this time he was boarding.
The next day, that relative contacted different NGOs dedicated to rescue at sea, but no one was near the area where the ship could supposedly pass, because they were very far away, or out of service, or transporting others. rescued. “The only chance they have is that the sea is going to be fine tonight,” commented an experienced NGO captain who was off duty. After more than 24 hours without coverage, Hamza sent a message to his relative: “Hello honey, how are you? I arrived in Lampedusa at 12 at night, thank Allah.”
Like Hamza, in 2023, Italy was the country in the region that received the most irregular migrants despite the promises of the prime minister, the far-right Giorgia Meloni, to stop the entries: it received at least 157,652 people, 50% more than the last year and 57% of all EU arrivals. Almost all of them came from Tunisia, which for the first time overtook Libya and became the busiest route despite the signing last July of the Understanding Agreement between the European Commission and President Kais Said.
Spain has been the second European country where arrivals have increased the most in 2023 and also the second that has seen the greatest increase compared to the previous year.
Greece is the third country in the Union with the most entries: 48,563, but it is the one that has registered the highest percentage increase: 145% more, or almost triple that of the previous year. Of the new arrivals, the vast majority (almost 42,000) arrived in precarious boats from the coasts of Turkey to the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Kos and Rhodes, mainly. Another 7,000 migrants entered the country by land, a similar number to previous years.
Europe, the largest cemetery in the world
Crossing a European border without papers is not easy: 3,863 people died or disappeared when they tried, another record number. They add up to an estimated total of 28,000 people dead or missing since 2014when the IOM records began, which have turned the European continent into the deadliest place on the planet for those who try to enter it clandestinely.
The Mediterranean continues to be the largest maritime cemetery in the world: 2,797 people have remained under its waters, 72% of those missing this year, and more than 28,000 of the victims registered in the last decade. “Although it is not correct to speak of a migratory emergency, it is correct to speak of a humanitarian emergency,” says Di Giacomo. The expert bets that the death toll is much higher due to the difficulty of documenting shipwrecks and the fact that most bodies are never found. However, The NGO Caminando Fronteras uses less conservative figures and raises the number of dead or missing to 6,618. only on the routes to Spain, mainly to the Canary Islands (6,007), when the IOM estimates the death toll on that journey at 914. And at least 152 have been registered in other European borders, such as the English Channel, the Western Balkans or Belarus with the EU.
Although almost all deaths occur on the route between Tunisia and Libya towards Italy, the most serious event occurred in Greek waters, in the Ionian Sea. It was the shipwreck Adriana, which sailed from Libya on June 13, succumbed with all passengers on board. The official number of victims is 596, mainly women and children. Previously, on February 26, another sinking occurred off the coast of Cutro, northeastern Italy, in which at least 94 people drowned.
Alternative routes and sealed borders
The Western Balkan route has been less busy in 2023, with 161,592 ir
regular border crossings, 19% less than in 2022. However, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that the number of people stranded on the region is around 8,400.
The eastern flank of the EU is one of the most armored in the world since the 2021 migration crisis, when the Belarusian president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, was accused of organizing the transfer of refugees and migrants to Lithuania, Latvia and Poland in response to sanctions imposed by the EU. In 2023, Polish border authorities thwarted 26,000 entry attempts; Latvia, 13,000 and Lithuania, another 2,500. These three countries have adopted strong restrictive measures: they have closed their borders, they have built more kilometers of fences, they have deployed the army or they have legalized sudden returns.
More asylum seekers than ever
The 27 countries of the EU, plus Norway and Switzerland, Until October 2023, they received some 973,000 asylum applications, the highest figure since the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016. The director of the EU Asylum Agency stated on December 26 that the figure will “far exceed one million.” The recognition rate stood at 49%, meaning that just under one in two applicants received an EU-regulated form of protection. Syrians continue to present by far the largest number of applicants, and Germany is the first destination.
Regarding expulsions, the European Asylum Agency estimates that there are close to a million pending decisions. The EU issued more than 325,000 deportation orders, but executed around 80,0000, just 24%. This low percentage contrasts with the intention of the 27 to reinforce returns through collaboration with the countries of origin, in an operational strategy proposed a year ago by the Commissioner for the Interior, Ylva Johansson, and also one of the most important points of the Migration and Asylum Pact approved last December.
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