Number of migrants reaching Europe this year passes 1 million

22:31, 22 December 2015

The number of migrants who have entered Europe by sea and land this year has passed 1 million, the International Organization for Migration said Tuesday.

It said that as of Monday, taking into account the latest updates, there had been 1,005,504 "irregular arrivals" into Europe in 2015.

The figures show that the vast majority -- 971,289 -- have come by sea over the Mediterranean. Another 34,215 have crossed from Turkey into Bulgaria and Greece by land.

Among those traveling by sea, 3,695 are known to have drowned or remain missing as they attempted to cross the sea on unseaworthy boats, according to IOM figures. That's a rate of more than 10 deaths each day this year.

Story highlights

More than 1 million migrants have entered Europe this year, the International Organization for Migration says The vast majority have come through Greece and via the sea More migrants entered Europe across the Mediterranean in October than in all of 2014 (CNN)The number of migrants who have entered Europe by sea and land this year has passed 1 million, the International Organization for Migration said Tuesday.

It said that as of Monday, taking into account the latest updates, there had been 1,005,504 "irregular arrivals" into Europe in 2015.

The figures show that the vast majority -- 971,289 -- have come by sea over the Mediterranean. Another 34,215 have crossed from Turkey into Bulgaria and Greece by land.

One in every two of those crossing the Mediterranean this year -- half a million people -- were Syrians escaping the grinding, four-year civil war in their homeland.

More than 4 million Syrians have fled the conflict, creating the worst refugee crisis seen in 25 years, according to the United Nations.

Afghans accounted for 20% of the migrant flow, and Iraqis 7%.

A 'manageable' crisis The startling human tide has presented European leaders, already grappling with the Eurozone debt crisis, with a fresh challenge -- one that has created political rifts and thrown the European goal of border-free travel into question.

IOM Director General William Lacy Swing said the numbers were significant, but not unmanageable.

"The numbers are important, but there's also a recognition that they're going into a population area of 550 million," he told CNN.

"If there were not a crisis of solidarity and leadership within the European Union, whereby others would follow the very important, courageous and visionary leadership of (German) Chancellor (Angela) Merkel and open their doors, then dispersed among 28 countries, it would have been much more manageable."

Germany, the most economically powerful country in the European Union, has led the way in extending a welcome to migrants, becoming the destination of choice for many entering Europe.

The country is set to take in more than a million asylum seekers this year, considerably more than any other country in the European Union, and has set aside more than $6 billion to help feed and house the new arrivals.

But where Merkel has opened doors, other European leaders have put up fences. Unequal burden Swing contrasted Europe's migrant burden with that of Syria's neighbors, who were accommodating most of the 4 million refugees from the conflict.

"Turkey is now the largest refugee-hosting country in the world, with close to 2.5 million," he said.

"Lebanon, with a population of less than 5 million, is hosting more than a million, and water-poor Jordan is giving 10 million liters of water every day to the million in their refugee camps."

"You cannot have unbroken simultaneous conflict from the western bulge of Africa to the Himalayas without expecting that a lot of people will be heading north, and obviously the resolution of the Syrian conflict is key to everything here," he said.