The number of immigrants towards Europe has snowballed and reached unexpected results to the EU leaders. There have been many attempts to deal with the continually-escalating number of immigrants, but the crisis does not seem to reach an end. The EU leaders have been reaching agreements to host more immigrants despite the unwelcoming attitude of its people whose main fear is for their societies to be affected by the culture of the floods of refugees through whom ISIS members may infiltrate.
Shocking numbers: the worst immigration crisis in decades
In a general overview of the evolution of the immigrants' number and according to the latest statistics, more than 3000 people have died in the Mediterranean sea as they were trying to cross to Europe. By 2014, over 280.000 people have been into Europe through illegal ways. The majority of whom follow the Western African routes, the Mediterranean and the Balkan routes as showed in the map. About 220.000 have reached Europe in 2014 which equals about twice and a half of the number of immigrants to Europe in 2013. The majority of the immigrants have reached their destination through the Libya-Italy route and continued their journey towards other countries within Europe, while a less condensed groups of immigrants followed the Turkey-Greece route. The majority of the immigrants are of Eritrean and Syrian origins.
The beginning of 2015 witnessed a fast escalation in the numbers. Greece has become the prime point of arrival of immigrants whose origins are primarily from Syria as the first source country, Nigeria and Somalia at subsequent positions. By August 2015, the United Nation High Commissioner of refugees had announced that the number of immigrants detected at Italy and Greece has risen to 250.000 during 2015.
By September 2015, recent statistics unveil that the number of arrivals is double the number of the overall amount of immigrants during 2014. They estimate that more than 430.000 refugees and migrants have reached the European borders 70% among whom are Syrians, and that 2784 have died in the central Mediterranean route.
Hopes for new measures: different views
The EU Asylum policy system presents a legal cover for the refugees and immigrants towards EU countries. It basically secures and guarantees the rights of refugees in any member state of the EU. The system sets standardized and commonly agreed procedures for the applications among all member countries of the union.
The EU has received the greatest number of asylum seekers applications ever since the implementation of the asylum police. It has received more than 670.000 applications in 2014.
45% of the applicants have been granted protection and around 20% have been granted protection on appeal. Germany, France, Italy and Sweden hosted around two thirds of the migrants.
At early 2015, the number has risen by nearly 90% if compared to 2014. The origins of the applicants were mainly from Kosovo, then Syria and Afghanistan. Later in 2015, the number jumped to 213.000 mostly coming from Syria, followed by Afghanistan. In August 2015, Germany said that it expects more than 800.000 applications before the end of 2015.
Nidhal Chemkhi