Afghan migrants wait to board a bus on their way to the nearest registration camp on the Greek island of Lesbos on October 22, 2015. (Reuters)
Geneva, Switzerland:
The number of refugees and migrants reaching reaching Greece surged to 48,000 in the five days to October 21, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said today, but the UN refugee agency said Russian air strikes in Syria had not caused any significant refugee exodus.
IOM said the latest surge of people arriving in Greece was the highest weekly total so far this year, bringing the number of Mediterranean migrant arrivals in Europe to 681,000.
Amin Awad, the Middle East director for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said Russian airstrikes and increased fighting around the Syrian city of Aleppo had contributed to the "dynamic of displacement", with about 30,000 displaced, but had not contributed much to the refugee exodus.
The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs puts the number at 50,000.
"The latest fighting, whether ground fighting or air strikes did not contribute too much to exodus across the international border to make them refugees. That did not happen," Awad told a regular UN briefing in Geneva.
But he said the number of internally diplaced people within Syria had fallen from 7.6 million people to 6.3 million, a decline that could be attributed to the refugee flows to Europe, as well as people being missed from the latest count.
IOM said the latest surge of people arriving in Greece was the highest weekly total so far this year, bringing the number of Mediterranean migrant arrivals in Europe to 681,000.
Amin Awad, the Middle East director for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said Russian airstrikes and increased fighting around the Syrian city of Aleppo had contributed to the "dynamic of displacement", with about 30,000 displaced, but had not contributed much to the refugee exodus.
The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs puts the number at 50,000.
"The latest fighting, whether ground fighting or air strikes did not contribute too much to exodus across the international border to make them refugees. That did not happen," Awad told a regular UN briefing in Geneva.
But he said the number of internally diplaced people within Syria had fallen from 7.6 million people to 6.3 million, a decline that could be attributed to the refugee flows to Europe, as well as people being missed from the latest count.
© Thomson Reuters 2015
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