2015 European migrant crisis
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"The lack of a truly European asylum and migration policy is now turning the Mediterranean into a graveyard. Our immediate priority must be to save lives at sea. When people are dying right in front of our eyes, human decency demands that we hold out our hand to save them."--Martin Schulz, 2015 "2015: Angela Merkel said "Wir schaffen das" and installed a willkommenskultur. She then promises micro jobs to all people emigrating to Europe in a plan for full employment." --Sholem Stein "According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), up to 3,072 people died or disappeared in 2014 in the Mediterranean while trying to migrate to Europe. Overall estimates are that over 22,000 migrants died between 2000 and 2014. In 2014, 283,532 migrants irregularly entered the European Union, mainly following the Central Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean and Western Balkan routes. 220,194 migrants crossed EU sea borders in the Central, Eastern and Western Mediterranean (a 266 percent increase compared to 2013). Half of them had come from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan. Of those arriving in Southern Europe in 2014, the vast majority (170,664, a 277 percent increase compared to 2013) arrived in Italy through Libya, whereas a minority (50,834, a 105 percent increase) arrived in Greece through Turkey. 62,000 applied for asylum in Italy, but most Syrians and Eritreans, who comprised almost half of the arrivals in Italy in 2014, did not stop in Italy but instead continued moving towards northern Europe, in particular Germany and Sweden." --Sholem Stein
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The European migrant crisis, is a term given to a period beginning in 2015 when rising numbers of people arrived in the European Union (EU), travelling across the Mediterranean Sea or overland through Southeast Europe. These people included asylum seekers, but also others, such as economic migrants and some hostile agents, including Islamic State militants disguised as refugees or migrants.
Most of the migrants came from Muslim-majority countries of regions south and east of Europe, including Western Asia, South Asia and Africa. By religious affiliation, the majority of entrants were Muslim (usually Sunni Muslim), with a small component of non-Muslim minorities (including Yazidis, Assyrians, Mandeans, etc.). According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the top three nationalities of entrants of the over one million Mediterranean Sea arrivals between January 2015 and March 2016 were Syrian (46.7%), Afghan (20.9%) and Iraqi (9.4%).
Of the migrants arriving in Europe by sea in 2015, 58% were adult males over 18 years of age, 17% were adult females over 18 years of age and 25% were minors under 18 years of age. The number of deaths at sea rose to record levels in April 2015, when five boats carrying almost 2,000 migrants to Europe sank in the Mediterranean Sea, with a combined death toll estimated at more than 1,200 people. The shipwrecks took place in a context of ongoing conflicts and refugee crises in several Asian and African countries, which increased the total number of forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2014 to almost 60 million, the highest level since World War II.
Amid an upsurge in the number of sea arrivals in Italy from Libya in 2014, several European Union governments refused to fund the Italian-run rescue option Operation Mare Nostrum, which was replaced by Frontex's Operation Triton in November 2014. In the first six months of 2015, Greece overtook Italy as the first EU country of arrival, becoming, in the summer 2015, the starting point of a flow of refugees and migrants moving through Balkan countries to Northern European countries, mainly Germany and Sweden.
Since April 2015 the European Union has struggled to cope with the crisis, increasing funding for border patrol operations in the Mediterranean, devising plans to fight migrant smuggling, launching Operation Sophia and proposing a new quota system both to relocate asylum seekers among EU states for processing of refugee claims to alleviate the burden on countries on the outer borders of the Union, and to resettle asylum-seekers who have been determined to be genuine refugees. Individual countries have at times reintroduced border controls within the Schengen Area, and rifts have emerged between countries willing to allow entry of asylum-seekers for processing of refugee claims and others countries trying to discourage their entry for processing.
According to Eurostat, EU member states received over 1.2 million first-time asylum applications in 2015, more than double that of the previous year. Four states (Germany, Hungary, Sweden and Austria) received around two-thirds of the EU's asylum applications in 2015, with Hungary, Sweden and Austria being the top recipients of asylum applications per capita.
See also
- Death of Alan Kurdi
- EU Malta Declaration
- Fort Europa
- Immigration to Greece
- African immigration to Europe
- Hungarian border barrier
- Illegal immigration
- Islamic extremism
- Islamic terrorism
- List of migrant vessel incidents on the Mediterranean Sea
- Petra László tripping incident
- Willkommenskultur
- Timeline of the European migrant crisis
- Afghan refugees
- Kurdish refugees
- Syrian refugees
- Libyan refugees
- Iraqi refugees
- Sudanese refugees
- Immigration to Europe
- List of migrant vessel incidents on the Mediterranean Sea
- List of migrant vehicle incidents in Europe
- Lampedusa immigrant reception center
- Migrants around Calais
- La Liniere refugee camp
- Basroch refugee camp
- Austrian border barrier
- Bulgarian border barrier
- Ceuta border fence
- Calais border barrier
- Hungarian border barrier
- Macedonian border barrier
- Melilla border fence
- Norway–Russia border barrier
- Slovenian border barrier
- 2015 IKEA stabbing attack
- November 2015 Paris attacks
- 2015 Vienna swimming pool rape
- 2015 Geldermalsen riot
- 2015 Corsican protests
- New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany
- Murder of Ashley Ann Olsen
- Killing of Alexandra Mezher
- 2016 Würzburg train attack
- 2016 Ansbach bombing
- Reutlingen knife attack
- Hungarian migrant quota referendum, 2016
- Murder of Maria Ladenburger
- Asylum in the European Union
- Convention relating to the Status of Refugees
- Dublin Regulation
- European Border Surveillance System (Eurosur)
- Frontex
- Fortress Europe
- Schengen Agreement
- Valletta Summit on Migration
- EU-Turkey deal on migrant crisis
- European migration to the Americas
- European colonization of the Americas
- Migrants walk past the temple as they are escorted by Slovenian riot police to the registration camp by Sergey Ponomarev