So far this year, around 12,000 of the 17,000 migrant arrivals to Europe took the central route, with most of them landing in Italy, Fossi said. Adding some arrivals from the eastern route, Italy has been the landing point for the vast majority of Europe-bound refugees, consistent with most previous years.
ROME, March 1 (Xinhua) -- The recent death of at least 64 refugees off the coast of southern Italy is the latest in a long series of tragedies for many of the world's poorest and most desperate seeking to reach Europe's shores.
Last Sunday, an overcrowded vessel that illegally set out from Türkiye broke apart when, amid rough seas, it hit rocks near the coast of the southern Italian region of Calabria.
One of the deadliest migrant boat disasters occurred in April 2015, when at least 800 people perished as a vessel en route to Italy sank off the coast of Libya.
But data on migrant deaths at sea is notoriously unreliable, according to Ferruccio Pastore, director of Fieri, an Italian think tank focused on immigration issues.
"Migrant arrivals are relatively easy to calculate because each country keeps close track," Pastore told Xinhua. "But deaths at sea? A boat could go under with no formal record of it. Even when we're aware of it, we don't always know how many people were on board."
What is clear, analysts said, is that the number of people fleeing their countries due to conflict, poverty and other factors is on the rise -- and so is the number of those who lose their lives doing so.
According to Federico Fossi, a public information officer from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are three main routes potential refugees take to arrive in Europe: from Morocco to Spain, from Türkiye to Greece or Italy, and from Libya or Tunisia to Italy or Malta. The deadliest by far, Fossi said, is the last one on the list, accounting for around two-thirds of all arrivals and more than 80 percent of all deaths.
"The central route is the most treacherous because it exposes refugees to open seas and harsh weather and it often forces smugglers to use more unseaworthy vessels to escape detection," Fossi told Xinhua.
Last Sunday's tragedy involved a vessel from Türkiye that boarded passengers mainly from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
So far this year, around 12,000 of the 17,000 migrant arrivals to Europe took the central route, with most of them landing in Italy, Fossi said. Adding some arrivals from the eastern route, Italy has been the landing point for the vast majority of Europe-bound refugees, consistent with most previous years.
That fact has sparked anti-migrant backlashes in Italy. In 2018, the then-government temporarily closed the country's ports to migrant arrivals, and so far the government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has tightened restrictions and called for stronger collaboration on migrants with the other European Union (EU) member states.
In early February, Meloni lobbied other EU leaders to agree to a united burden-sharing agreement on migration, but it failed to reach a consensus. Still, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Sicily a few days before Sunday's tragedy and said a European solution on migrants is possible.
But Italy's government has also elicited criticism after Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi blamed potential refugees for taking undue risks. "Despair cannot justify travel conditions that endanger the lives of somebody's children," he said.
Addressing Parliament on Tuesday, Piantedosi blamed traffickers for the tragedies, saying Europe should stop migrants from turning to unscrupulous figures for help.
Fieri's Pastore said the key to helping curb the influx of refugees was investing in the stability and economic development of poor countries. "Nobody wants to take such a dangerous step, but they feel they have no choice," he said.
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