Last year, the number of illegal border crossings EU reached the highest level since 2016 – it grew by 64% compared to the previous year.
Such data was presented on Friday by the border EU agency Frontex. Over the past year, according to preliminary estimates, approximately 330,000 illegal crossings were detected on the external border of the European Union. Caused by the coronavirus pandemic, their minimum in 2020 was replaced by a sharp increase in the number of illegal entries.
Almost 50% of the total is on the Western Balkan route, with Afghans, Tunisians and Syrians accounting for 47% of detected illegal border crossings. The number of the latter doubled last year and amounted to 94,000. Approximately 9% of the identified illegal immigrants are minors, about the same number are women.
Separate data relate to Ukrainian refugees – from February 24 to the end of December, almost 13 million refugee entries from Ukraine were registered at the external land borders of the EU. During the same period and on the same sections of the border, 10 million Ukrainian citizens were registered to leave.
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