European Migrant Crisis: West African Route Crossings Surge to Record High

The European Union’s Frontex border control agency said this week that illegal migrant crossings of the West African route to Spain’s Canary Islands reached a record high this year.

Between January and March, more than 13,500 illegal boat migrants were recorded crossing the Atlantic Ocean from West Africa to the Canary Islands, marking the highest number logged by Frontex during the three-month period since it began collecting such data in 2011.

The European Union’s border control agency said that the majority of illegal arrivals on the Spanish-owned islands came from the African nations of Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania, the EU-funded InfoMigrants website reports.

Meanwhile, illegal crossings also surged along the Eastern Mediterranean route from Turkey to Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Greece, with 13,700 arrivals of mostly Afghan, Egyptian, and Syrian migrants recorded in the first three months of the year, meaning that the Eastern route was the most trafficked since the start of the year.

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