EU-Bound Refugees Face Increased Peril at Sea With Approaching Winter

Refugees making a perilous sea crossing to Greece from the Middle East and North Africa now face increased danger due to harsh fall and winter conditions, a senior officer with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Athens told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Ron Redmond, a senior UNHCR public information officer in Greece, said Wednesday that human trafficking had begun to decrease as weather conditions worsen. Winter conditions make the Mediterranean dangerously rough.

"The number of the people arriving in Greece is now going up and down, it is fluctuating from day to day, depending on the weather, because now autumn is here, and winter is approaching, the weather is going to make things more difficult and dangerous," Redmond stated.

Over 400,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Greece since the beginning of 2015.

EU border protection agency Frontex claims that over 600,000 migrants crossed the European Union's external borders in the first eight months of 2015. Over 2,500 are estimated to have drowned while trying to reach Europe.

On Tuesday, the European Union stepped up its operation to curb human trafficking in the Mediterranean by launching the second phase of a marine operation aimed at seizing vessels that smuggle refugees to Europe.