As migration returns to the top of Europe's political agenda, Europe's border and coast guard agency said last Friday that irregular arrivals had risen by 13% between January and July to 176,100, the highest number for the period since 2016.
Frontex said the increase was entirely driven by a 115% rise in the number of people using the "central Mediterranean" route, which is now the main migratory route into the EU and accounts for more than half of all EU border detections.
Many, however, do not make it. According to data from the UN's International Organization for Migration, so far in 2023 more than 2,090 people have gone missing in the Mediterranean, mostly on the central route.
The route, from Libya or Tunisia northward to Greece or Italy, can take several days, is often made in unseaworthy, dangerously overloaded boats, and was used successfully by more than 89,000 people in the first seven months of 2023, Frontex said.
Denne historien er fra August 18, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra August 18, 2023-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
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I see you
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Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
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Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
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'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
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Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
