More than 660 migrants have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea, when aiming to reach Europe since the beginning of 2017.
This emerges from statistics produced by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Since January 1st, 603 individuals have died upon taking the Central Mediterranean route, whilst 47 migrants died on the Western Mediterranean route, and a further 14 when going via the Eastern Mediterranean route.
During the same period, 31,993 migrants and refugees have successfully arrived in Europe by crossing this intercontinental sea. More than 26,000 such migrants arrived in Italy, a little over 4,000 in Greece and around 1,000 in Spain.
It is worth noting that a total of 5,098 migrants had died making this Mediterranean Sea crossing, during the whole of 2016.
