Migrant flows to EU eased after Turkey deal, 'front line' moved to Italy
The flow of refugees and migrants to Europe has slowed since April when the European Union sealed a deal with Turkey to halt illegal traffic across the Aegean Sea, the region's border agency chief said on July 12.
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Since then, Italy has replaced Greece as the migration "front line", with hundreds crossing the Mediterranean from Libya every day, Fabrice Leggeri, head of Frontex, the agency in charge of protecting the EU's external borders, said.
"For the first six months of 2016, there were 360,000 illegal entries in the EU, which is higher than what we saw last year, but the influx has been diminishing since April," Leggeri told France's Europe 1 radio.
In 2015, Frontex recorded more than 1.5 million irregular crossings into Europe, mostly by people entering Greece before heading north to Germany and Sweden, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere.
Leggeri said the "new front line" was now Italy where about 750 people, mostly from sub-Saharan and Western Africa, arrived each day compared with about 50 in Greece.
