CNN — More than 2,500 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean while attempting to cross into Europe so far this year, the U.N. Refugee Agency says, with at least 880 drowning in the past week alone.
“Thus far 2016 is proving to be particularly deadly,” said William Spindler, spokesman for the agency, in announcing the soaring death toll in Geneva Tuesday.
He said 2,510 people have died making the perilous crossing so far this year, compared to 1,855 in the first five months of 2015 — an increase of 35%. Fewer than 60 died in the same period in 2014.
At least 880 migrants drowned in a series of sinkings and wrecks in the past week, said Spindler, citing new information from survivors who reached Italy.
He said that on top of three major sinkings of overcrowded vessels from Libya that occurredWednesday, Thursday and Friday, officials had subsequently learned that 46 were missing from a raft carrying 125 people that deflated, eight had been lost overboard from another and four died in a fire on board another.
Most of the migrants in the recent wrecks were from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, the U.N refugee agency said last week.
Central Mediterranean route ‘more dangerous’
Spindler said that the central Mediterranean route — from Libya or other north African countries to Italy — was “dramatically more dangerous” than the Turkey-Greece route taken by most migrants.
Boats on the central Mediterranean route were more crowded than those typically seen on the Turkey-Greece route, often carrying 600 or more passengers, he said.
