Geneva – IOM, the UN Migration Agency, reports that 142,913 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2017 through 11 October, with over 75 per cent arriving in Italy and the remainder divided between Greece, Cyprus and Spain. This compares with 318,791 arrivals across the region through the same period last year.

IOM Rome reported Thursday (12 October) that official figures from the Italian Ministry of the Interior show 108,402 migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy by sea this year, including 1374 men, women and children rescued and brought to shore since Sunday. Another 659 migrants rescued Wednesday are not yet included in Italy’s arrival data.

IOM Rome’s Flavio Di Giacomo reported that the nearly 3,000 arrivals to Italy through the first third of October indicate migrant flows from Libya may be rising again after a lull in arrivals this past summer. Just under 4000 arrivals were recorded by Italy this past August, and 6,288 in September – both totals considerably lower than those recorded during those same months in 2015 and 2015.

Last October 27,384 men, women and children arrived in Italy by sea, the most of any month in 2016. (see chart below)

IOM Athens’ Kelly Namia on Thursday reported on six events occurring off the islands of Lesvos, Samos, Kos, and Chios that required search and rescue operations. The Hellenic Coast Guard managed to rescue the 686 migrants and transferred them to the respective islands.
Ms. Namia further reported that migrant sea arrivals to Greek territory totalled 1508 for the first ten days of October, and 21,050 for the year so far. (See chart below)

IOM Libya’s Christine Petré reports that on Thursday (12 October), 72 migrants (44 men, 16 women and 12 children) were rescued/intercepted off Tripoli and transferred to Tajoura detention centre. IOM also received information regarding a second rescue/interception but is awaiting confirmation and additional details.
So far this year, 18,477 migrants have been rescued/intercepted in Libyan waters.
Worldwide, IOM’s Missing Migrant Project (MMP) has recorded 4,616 migrant fatalities in 2017.  Since the last update (10 October), MMP recorded two deaths in Europe: on 27 September, a young Libyan migrant died on the A28 motorway near Abbeville, France, when he fell from the truck to which he was clinging. On 8 October, another migrant died in a train accident near Gemünden am Main in Bavaria, Germany.  The two companions with whom he was travelling survived the accident.
Additionally, MMP recorded the deaths of three migrants on the US/Mexico border: one migrant died in a train accident near Uvalde, Texas, and two drowned in the Río Bravo near Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas, Mexico, on8 and 11 October. So far in 2017, 70 migrants have drowned when attempting to cross the swift-flowing Río Bravo in order to reach the United States. This total compares with 52 through this date in 2016 and 29 through the same period in 2015.
In the Central Mediterranean, a boat carrying 87 migrants collided with a Tunisian navy vessel near the island of Kerkennah (Sfax) last Sunday, 8 October. Tunisian authorities confirmed 38 survivors and the remains of eight persons recovered. The estimate of those missing* currently stands at 41. These deaths bring the total of fatalities in the Mediterranean in 2017 to 2,775. 
*When deaths occur at sea, Missing Migrants Project often relies on the estimates of survivors once they are rescued, with the lowest estimate of missing persons always used in the dataset.

Latest Mediterranean Update infographic: http://migration.iom.int/docs/MMP/171013_Mediterranean_Update.pdf
For latest arrivals and fatalities in the Mediterranean, please visit: http://migration,iom,int/europe
Learn more about the Missing Migrants Project at: http://missingmigrants,iom,int
For more information, please contact:
Joel Millman at IOM HQ, Tel: +41 79 103 8720, Email: jmillman@iom.int
Mircea Mocanu, IOM Romania, Tel:  +40212115657, Email: MMOCANU@iom.int
Dimitrios Tsagalas, IOM Cyprus, Tel: + 22 77 22 70, E-mail: dtsagalas@iom.int
Flavio Di Giacomo, IOM Italy, Tel: +39 347 089 8996, Email: fdigiacomo@iom.int
Kelly Namia, IOM Greece, Tel: +30 210 991 2174, Email: knamia@iom.int
Julia Black, IOM GMDAC, Tel: +49 30 278 778 27, Email: jblack@iom.int
Christine Petré, IOM Libya, Tel: +216 29 240 448, Email: chpetre@iom.int
Ana Dodevska, IOM Spain, Tel: +34 91 445 7116, Email: ADODEVSKA@iom.int