By Sebastien Malo

NEW YORK, Dec 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – More than a million refugees and migrants braved the seas in 2015 looking for sanctuary in Europe, almost 5 occasions greater than within the earlier 12 months, the United Nations’ refugee company mentioned on Wednesday.

About half of the 1,000,573 males, ladies and youngsters who made the perilous journey got here from war-torn Syria, whereas Afghans accounted for roughly a fifth, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees company mentioned in an announcement.

Most individuals who took to the water for Europe made their approach on the Aegean Sea to Greece’s islands from Turkey, it mentioned. From Greece, many journey to wealthier western Europe.

{A photograph} of a 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned attempting to achieve Greece along with his household in September appeared all over the world, prompting sympathy and outrage over the refugee disaster.

Nearly 4,000 folks had been believed to have drowned earlier than reaching shore, in keeping with UNHCR.

Another main route for migrants was the Mediterranean Sea, separating North Africa and the Middle East from Europe, it mentioned.

Europe is within the midst of its largest migration disaster since World War Two, in keeping with the United Nations.

The variety of folks forcibly displaced worldwide is more likely to have surpassed 60 million this 12 months, primarily pushed by the struggle in Syria and different long-term conflicts, the United Nations has mentioned.

The UNHCR mentioned it tallied the variety of migrants touring by sea to Europe utilizing figures from nationwide authorities.

The determine in 2015 represents almost 5 occasions the ocean arrivals to Europe in 2014, recorded at roughly 216,000, the UNHCR mentioned.

The quantity highlights the difficulty of individuals pressured to flee in harmful methods, mentioned UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards.

“There are abundant regular, safe and legal means of managing this, and they need serious looking at,” he mentioned.

Syria has been ravaged by an almost five-year-old civil struggle, which has pressured greater than 4 million folks to depart the nation and killed some 250,000 folks.

The inflow of refugees and migrants has induced tensions throughout Europe, with some nations toughening border controls. (Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit score the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian information, ladies’s rights, trafficking, corruption and local weather change. Visit www.belief.org)

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