Human Wrongs Watch
War, conflict or persecution forced most of the 137,000 desperate people who made the perilous journey to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe during the first six months of 2015, making this primarily a refugee crisis, a new report from the United Nations refugee agency on 1 July 2015 said.
The opening lines of the The sea route to Europe: The Mediterranean passage in the age of refugees, compiled by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, put the challenges facing Europe, the wider international community and humanitarian actors in stark relief.
![[Asylum-seekers in a holding centre on Greece’s Samos Island. Photo: UNHCR/A. D’Amato] Asylum-seekers in a holding centre on Greece’s Samos Island. Photo: UNHCR/A. D’Amato](https://human-wrongs-watch.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/01-30-2015greece_asylum.jpg?w=365&h=243)


