26 February 2016•Update: 29 February 2016
IZMIR, Turkey
Turkey’s Coast Guard has said that the number of migrants discovered in the country’s Aegean region has risen by 1,000 percent since the same period in 2015.
Almost 6,800 migrants -- mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq -- were found by the Turkish authorities in the first 24 days of February, according to fresh data.
This compares to around 600 migrants who were detained in February last year.
This huge increase is also reflected in a two-month comparison between this year and 2015.
The Coast Guard said around 12,300 migrants had been found in the last 55 days while they were trying to reach Europe.
This number was roughly 1,300 in the first two months of 2015.
Over 150 migrants have drowned in the Aegean Sea this year alone.
Over the past year, hundreds of thousands have made short-but-perilous journeys in a bid to reach northern and western Europe in search of a better life.
Of the more than 1.1 million refugees who arrived in the EU last year, more than 850,000 arrived by sea to Greece from Turkey, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Over the course of the year, 805 people died in the Aegean.
Over 100,000 migrants or refugees have crossed into Greece since the beginning of 2016, according to the IOM.
As of Feb. 22, Greece had received some 102,547 arrivals. In 2015, migrant arrivals topped 100,000 in July.
