MOSCOW (Sputnik) — More than 710,000 migrants arrived in the European Union within the first nine months of 2015, EU external border protection agency Frontex said Tuesday.
Half of all the migrants who arrived at the European Union’s external borders between January and September used the Greek islands, especially Lesbos, as a transfer point to other countries in Europe, according to the agency’s data.
Migrants arriving in the Eastern Mediterranean region are mostly of Syrian origin, Frontex said.
Italy received nearly 129,000 migrants within the first nine months of the year, with Eritreans being the dominant nationality among those arriving to the country, the agency said.
Hungary, a country on the Western Balkan route, detected more than 204,000 migrants at its borders, a figure 13 times higher than in the same period of 2014, according to Frontex.
Europe has been beset by a refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries in the Middle East and North Africa to escape violence and poverty.
