European Refugee Crisis

The 2015 European migrant crisis or European refugee crisis arose through the rising number of refugees and migrants coming to the European Union, across the Mediterranean sea or Southeast Europe, and applying for asylum.  They come from areas such as the Middle East (Syria, Iraq), Africa (Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Gambia), the Western Balkans (Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia) and South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh).  According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of early September 2015, 71% of the Mediterranean Sea arrivals are refugees coming from Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea.  Most of the migrants are adult men (72%). The phrase "European migrant crisis" rose to popular use in April 2015, when five boats carrying almost two thousand migrants to Europe sank in the Mediterranean Sea, with a combined death toll estimated at more than 1,200 people.

The shipwrecks took place in a context of ongoing conflicts in several North African and Middle Eastern countries as well as the refusal by several European Union governments to fund the Italian-run rescue option Operation Mare Nostrum, which was replaced by Frontex's Operation Triton in November 2014. On 23 April 2015, EU governments agreed to triple funding for border patrol operations in the Mediterranean so that they would be equal to the previous capabilities of Operation Mare Nostrum, but Amnesty International immediately criticized the EU's decision not "to extend Triton's operational area" to the area previously covered by Mare Nostrum.  Some weeks later, the European Union decided to launch a new operation based in Rome, called EU Navfor Med, under the command of the Italian Admiral Enrico Credendino.

According to Eurostat, EU member states received 626,000 asylum applications in 2014, the highest number since the 672,000 applications received in 1992. In 2014, decisions on asylum applications in the EU made at the first instance resulted in more than 160,000 asylum seekers being granted protection status, while a further 23,000 received protection status on appeal. The rate of recognition of asylum applicants was 45% at the first instance and 18% on appeal. Four states – Germany, Sweden, Italy and France– received around two-thirds of the EU's asylum applications and granted almost two-thirds of protection status in 2014; while Sweden, Hungary and Austria were among the top recipients of EU asylum applications per capita.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis