According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over the first seven months of 2018, when trying to get to Europe in the Mediterranean, more than 1.5 thousand refugees were drowned. Only in June and July the death toll exceeded 850 people, the organization said..

Thus, the sea route to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea is the most deadly in the whole world, further stated in the statement.

The increase in the number of deaths when trying to get by sea to Europe causes particular alarm, if we take into account the overall reduction in the number of citizens traveling on such a journey, the authors of the report. According to them, from January to July 2018, there were 60,000 such people, half as many as in the same period last year.

At the moment, most of the refugees across the Mediterranean come to Spain (more than 23.5 thousand in the first seven months of 2018). In Italy, this figure was 18.5 thousand, in Greece - 16 thousand.