Illegal migrants arrive at the Zawiyah port, a naval base some 45 kilometers west of Libyan capital Tripoli, after they were rescued off the western city of Sabratha on May 24, 2016 as they were trying to reach Europe by boat. (Xinhua/Hamza Turkia)
The total number of migrants reaching Europe by sea in 2016 fell by nearly two-thirds in comparison with 2015, Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency said Friday.
According to a Frontex statement, some 364,000 migrants arrived in Europe last year. The number is a sharp drop from the more than one million migrants who entered the EU in 2015.
Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis accounted for the largest share of the arriving migrants.
The decreasing flow on the sea route was in large part due to the EU-Turkey deal, which came into effect in last March.
The deal led to tighter border control by the Turkish authorities and readmission of migrants from the Greek islands to Turkey, Frontex said.
The drop was also influenced by tighter border controls in the Western Balkans, as the people who crossed over the Mediterranean Sea to Greece tried to make their way via the the Western Balkan route towards western Europe.
The number of migrants across the Western Balkans in 2016 fell sharply to 123,000 from 764,000 in 2015.
