ANOTHER day, another grim statistic. On September 2nd a three-year-old boy was found drowned on a beach in Turkey after a boat carrying migrants capsized in a failed attempt to reach the Greek island of Kos. The boy, from Kobane in northern Syria, died along with his 5-year-old brother and their mother. Their father survived; a further nine people did not. So far more than 2,600 migrants are known to have died crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe in 2015, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
This year 350,000 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea compared with 219,000 during the whole of 2014, itself a record year. Greece alone has seen 234,000 people land on its shores, compared with 35,000 in 2014. Authorities are struggling to cope as most people cross to a handful of small islands situated kilometres from the Turkish coast. Some 23,000 have arrived in the past week, 50% more than the previous week. The majority of recent migrants are fleeing from Syria and Afghanistan. Most people will journey further north to seek asylum in countries like Germany, which accepts most asylum-seekers in total, and Sweden, which takes in most as a share of its own population. Germany expects at least 800,000 asylum-seekers this year compared with 173,000 in 2014.
