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World Refugee Day is internationally observed each year on June 20.

On this day, refugee advocates spotlight the strength and perseverance of the people around the globe who've been forced to flee their homes due to war, poverty and oppression.

Below is a brief snapshot of the global migrant crisis, understood through some key statistics.

Displaced Iraqis arrive at the Hammam al-Alil camp, south of Mosul, on April 5.

Number of refugees worldwide. More than half of them come from Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Number of refugees and internally displaced people globally. This includes refugees, who seek asylum in other countries, as well as those who have fled their homes but stay within their own nations.

Nearly 1% of people around the world who are displaced from their homes. This number fluctuates depending on the area, with one in 20 people in the Middle East and one in 60 in continental Africa facing displacement.

Number of refugees who resettled in new countries in 2016. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, the United States takes in the largest number of migrants each year, followed by Canada, Australia and the Nordic countries.

Two girls play with a doll near their shelter at a beach outside Souda refugee camp in Greece.

Number of refugees the United States took in during the last fiscal year, ending in September 2016. This was the largest number of refugees admitted into the U.S. in one year throughout Barack Obama's presidency. An additional 31,143 migrants were accepted from Oct. 1, 2016 to Jan. 24.

President Donald Trump's proposed budget for the 2018 fiscal year slashes spending on migration and refugee assistance by 18%. The International Rescue Committee estimates that these cuts could increase the number of people affected by the global famine from 30 million to 60 million, and strip access to education from more than 2 million girls.

Number of people who are forced to leave their homes every day to escape conflict, war and persecution. This translates to 20 people every minute.

A young South Sudanese refugee sits on a mat outside a communal tent in northern Uganda.

Number of unaccompanied minors who sought asylum in Europe from 2008 to 2015.

Number of refugees who died in 2016 while crossing the Mediterranean Sea in an effort to reach Europe. Most passed away while fleeing North Africa.

If all of the displaced migrants formed a country, theyd make up the 21st largest nation in the world.

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World Refugee Day: The migrant crisis, by the numbers - Mic

Brussels: New legal action by the EU against eastern member states for refusing to take their share of refugees shows how the worst migration crisis since World War II still divides the continent.

The images from a crisis entering its third year have become shockingly familiar: capsized boats, refugees teargassed in squalid border camps, a Syrian boy's tiny body on an empty beach.

The migration crisis has no official starting point but statistics from the International Organization of Migration (IOM) offer some chronological yardsticks.

Following gradual yearly increases since 2011, 2014 marked a first turning point with 1,70,100 people landing on Italian shores and 43,518 on Greek coastlines, up from 42,900 and 11,447 respectively the previous year.

But it was in 2015 that the situation took on dizzying proportions. The IOM registered 1,011,712 arrivals by sea in Europe, including 853,650 on Greek shores, with the peak in arrivals hit in October, and 153,842 on Italy's coastline.

Among the arrivals in Greece in 2015, more than half -- 56.l per cent -- were Syrian, while 24.3 per cent were from Afghanistan and 10.3 per cent were from Iraq.

Most came to Greece across the Aegean Sea from Turkey. While the EU struggled to forge a collective response and help Greece cope with the influx, most of the migrants trekked along the so-called Balkan route toward wealthy northern European countries like Germany and Sweden.

The arrivals on the Italian coast in 2015 came on the central Mediterranean route, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries: 39,162 Eritreans, 22,237 Nigerians, 12,433 Somalis and 8,932 Sudanese.

There was a sharp drop in migrant arrivals in Greece in 2016, with the IOM registering a total of 363,401 arrivals on Greek and Italian shores, about one-third as many as the previous year.

In Greece, 173,614 arrived by sea, a drop of nearly 80 percent, reflecting the combined impact of a controversial migrant deal between Turkey and the EU and the nearly total closure of the Balkans route.

The trend is continuing in 2017, with just 7,699 arrivals registered by the IOM in Greece during the first five months of the year.

But the lull in Aegean crossings is tenuous as Turkey is increasingly at odds with the EU and has threatened to scrap the migrant deal over European criticism of its crackdown after an attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Italy meanwhile has seen arrivals continue apace, hitting a new record in 2016 with 181,436.

So far this year, figures confirm that the central Mediterranean route has once again become, by far, the main channel to Europe.

Italy has registered more than 65,000 arrivals since January, up nearly 20 per cent from the same period last year.

While the migration crisis is often portrayed as a crisis facing the EU's roughly 510 million people, smaller countries outside the region have received a far higher proportion of arrivals.

Turkey hosts 3.2 million refugees, Lebanon shelters more than one million and Jordan is home to 660,000 according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The vast majority are Syrians.

Behind the migrant influx are human dramas. In total, nearly 14,000 people have died or disappeared trying to reach Europe in the last four years: 3,283 in 2014, 3,784 in 2015, 5,098 in 2016 and already more than 1,800 since January 1.

Moreover, among the asylum seekers in the EU in 2015 and2016, around a third were minors, according to the European Commission.

The EU police agency Europol said in January last year that more than 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children had disappeared in Europe during the preceding 18 to 24 months, adding that many may have been victims of sexual abuse and other assaults by organised crime networks.

EU countries had a record number of asylum applications in 2015, with nearly 1.26 million applying for the first time, after 562,000 in 2014, according to Eurostat. These amount to the total requests in member states, which can include people who applied in several countries.

In 2016, EU countries granted protection to about 710,400 people, more than twice the figure of 2015, according to Eurostat.

Some 55 per cent of the total in 2016 were listed as refugees, while 37 per cent were placed in the category of "subsidiary protection," or those who fall short of the criteria for refugee status but who are in danger in their home countries. Another eight per cent qualified for "authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons".

Germany topped the EU in granting protection to the greatest number of people last year, with Eurostat reporting 445,210 positive decisions, or three times more than in 2015.

Much further behind were Sweden, with 69,350 positive decisions, Italy (35,450), France (35,170) and Austria (31,750). Syrians topped the list of people benefitting from protection in EU countries last year at 405,600, or 57 per cent of the total, ahead of Iraqis (65,800) and Afghans (61,800).

The rate of positive responses to asylum requests for one of the three statuses stood at 61 per cent on first request, and 17 per cent on appeal, but there were wide disparities depending on the nationality of the applicant.

The rates rose to 98.1 per cent on average for Syrians, 92.5 per cent for Eritreans and 63.5 per cent for Iraqis. The rate was far lower for other nationalities, like 17.4 per cent for Pakistanis, 5.2 per cent for Algerians and 3.1 per cent for Albanians.

Asylum seekers whose applications are rejected are supposed to be sent back to their country of origin, as are new arrivals who do not ask for asylum and are considered economic migrants.

About 305,365 people last year received an administrative or judicial order to return to their home country, up from 286,725 in 2015 and 251,986 in 2014, according to Frontex.

And 176,223 people were effectively deported in 2016, including 79,608 via a forced departure, Frontex said. Topping the list for forced departures were Albanians at 19,482, Moroccans at 7,506 and Kosovars at 4,916. Ukrainians, Iraqis and Indians topped the category of people who chose to leave voluntarily.

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Numbers That Tell the Staggering Story of EU Migrant Crisis - News18

2016 was an extraordinarily deadly year for migrants: 5,000 people perished in the Mediterranean Sea, vastly exceeding the death toll of 3,700 in 2015. And in the first six months of 2017, more than 1,000 deaths have been recorded.

Year after year, we see the same dynamics at work. Migrants flee conflict and instability in the Middle East and Africa trying to reach Europe. In order to avoid the land checkpoints established by European governments, they take their lives into their hands, setting off across the Mediterranean in makeshift boats, often operated by unscrupulous people smugglers.

This is not a recent tragedy; migrant advocate organisations have been recording the death toll of these people since the 1990s. But now they dont simply tally up the dead, they directly intervene by rescuing migrants at sea.

It all started in 2014 with the discontinuation of the Italian navys humanitarian and military operation Mare Nostrum. The cost of the operation was too high for the Italian government, which was unable to convince its European partners to join its efforts.

The program was replaced by operation Triton, financed by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). But NGOs feared that the change would lead to the deaths of thousands of migrants: Triton has a lower budget than Mara Nostrum and only operates in a small section of the waters where boats are liable to sink.

Above all, Triton was primarily designed for border control, rather than saving lives.

Launched by a couple of Italian-American millionaires, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) was the first private organisation of its kind to charter a boat. In 2015, Doctors without Borders (MSF, short for Mdecins Sans Frontires) followed their lead, as did Save the Children in 2016.

Across Europe, citizens came together to create new organisations such as SOS Mditerrane, Sea Watch, Life Boat Project, Sea Eye, Jugend Rettet in Germany, Boat Refugee in the Netherlands, and Proactiva Open Arms in Spain.

Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs/Flickr, CC BY

The number of different authorities and organisations involved has made rescue operations more complex. Since maritime law states that any vessel close to a boat in distress must come to its aid, the relevant maritime authorities coordinate rescue efforts for each zone. In the central Mediterranean Sea, it is most often the Italian coast guard, part of the Ministry of Transportation, that grants NGOs permission to intervene.

But, in reality, its often the NGOs who find a sinking boat and contact the coast guard themselves.

Once the migrants are rescued, they are taken to an Italian port, under the authority of another government department (Ministry of the Interior), who selects their destination, registers them and directs them towards hotspots migrant centres set up by the European Union.

In Italy, the role of NGOs in rescue operations has created controversy. In December 2016, the Financial Times highlighted Frontexs frustration.

The European border force has reservations about sea rescue operations. In its opinion, letting migrants believe that all they need to do is take to the sea to be rescued and welcomed to Europe opens up the floodgates.

According to the British newspaper, Frontex has evidence that some NGOs are in contact with smugglers and direct them towards zones where migrants have the best chance of being rescued. In other words, they claim these NGOs are accomplices to human traffickers and are therefore guilty of the crime of assisting illegal immigration.

The report led Italian authorities to investigate. In May 2017, the Italian senates parliamentary inquiry concluded that NGOs constitute a pull factor and that they should cooperate more with maritime police operations. The Catania chief prosecutor nevertheless stated that there was no proof of wrongdoing.

The Italian government itself is divided. While the minister for foreign affairs has denounced the NGOs, the prime minister has thanked rescuers for their help, and the coast guard says it supports politically neutral maritime activities.

International organisations have also taken a stand. The UN High Commission for Refugees defended the NGOs, while the International Organization for Migration gave partial support to Frontexs arguments, while highlighting the importance of saving lives in the Mediterranean.

On June 9 2017, researchers Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani published the report Blaming the Rescuers. Using empirical evidence, it refuted Frontexs claims and pointed out that the border force also accused operation Mare Nostrum of encouraging illegal immigration.

Yet the end of the Mare Nostrum operation, far from limiting fatalities, led to an increase in deaths. In the 2016 report Death by Rescue, these same researchers measured fatalities during Mediterranean crossings, comparing the number of people lost at sea with the number of people who reached Europe. They showed that it was far more dangerous to migrate during the Triton operation than Mare Nostrum. Increases in fatalities and the risk of death during a crossing are therefore not due to the presence of rescuers but rather to the lack of rescue operations.

These reports accuse Frontex of ending the Mare Nostrum operation knowing that it was saving lives. They also claim that it is now doing the same thing with NGOs, attempting to get rid of them knowing full well that their absence would make the journey riskier.

The debate highlights contradictions in European migration policies, which are creating a prohibition effect. If it is impossible to procure something legally (access to Europe), demand shifts to the riskier back market, profiting unscrupulous intermediaries.

Strengthening border control, especially on land, automatically results in risky boat journeys and therefore a rise in the number of deaths at sea. And the humanitarian aim of saving lives inevitably runs up against government efforts to control immigration.

Behind the controversy lies the question of legitimacy. Who has the right to intervene and come to migrants rescue?

Frontex defends the right of governments to control their borders and exercise sovereignty. NGOs have another perspective: if national governments are unable to uphold certain fundamental rights, such as the right to life, civil society must intervene.

This philosophy is nothing new. State inaction is also the reason many NGOs have become involved in the fight against poverty, for instance, and the defense of minorities. What is different is its application to questions of sovereignty, which is normally reserved for nation states.

Maso Notarianni/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

To an extent, the crisis in the Mediterranean enables NGOs to challenge state control over borders. And its understandable that this creates resistance. But if governments wish to defend their monopoly, they should find better arguments than those put forward by Frontex.

Greater solidarity in Europe would help avoid situations like the one that led to the discontinuation of the Mare Nostrum operation. Following the Dublin Convention, countries such as Greece and Italy are continuously at the front line, which is neither fair nor sustainable.

In this context, we can see the limits of the current political approach to migration, founded on an obsession with security and a denial of fundamental rights.

With calm weather conditions ideal for sea crossings, the northern summer is almost upon us. The migration debate is only just beginning and it brings with it the need for a basic rethinking of European migratory policies.

Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for Fast for Word.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Are NGOs Responsible For The Migration Crisis In The ... - HuffPost

People walk past the new artwork entitled Soleil Levant' (sunrise in French) by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, made from over 3,500 lifejackets discarded by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, following its official inauguration at Copenhagens Kunsthal Charlottenborg museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, Tuesday June 20, 2017. Weiwei has barricaded the windows of the museum for his provocative new artwork as a striking reminder of the ongoing migrant crisis, inaugurated Tuesday on World Refugee Day. less People walk past the new artwork entitled Soleil Levant' (sunrise in French) by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, made from over 3,500 lifejackets discarded by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, ... more Photo: James Brooks, AP People view the new artwork by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, entitled Soleil Levant' (sunrise in French) made from over 3,500 lifejackets discarded by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, following its official inauguration at Copenhagens Kunsthal Charlottenborg museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, Tuesday June 20, 2017. Weiwei has barricaded the windows of the museum for his provocative new artwork as a striking reminder of the ongoing migrant crisis, inaugurated Tuesday on World Refugee Day. less People view the new artwork by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, entitled Soleil Levant' (sunrise in French) made from over 3,500 lifejackets discarded by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, following ... more Photo: James Brooks, AP Part of a new artwork by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, entitled Soleil Levant' (sunrise in French) made from over 3,500 lifejackets discarded by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, following its official inauguration at Copenhagens Kunsthal Charlottenborg museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, Tuesday June 20, 2017. Weiwei has barricaded the windows of the museum for his provocative new artwork as a striking reminder of the ongoing migrant crisis, inaugurated Tuesday on World Refugee Day. less Part of a new artwork by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, entitled Soleil Levant' (sunrise in French) made from over 3,500 lifejackets discarded by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, following its ... more Photo: James Brooks, AP Part of a new artwork by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, entitled Soleil Levant' (sunrise in French) made from over 3,500 lifejackets discarded by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, following its official inauguration at Copenhagens Kunsthal Charlottenborg museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, Tuesday June 20, 2017. Weiwei has barricaded the windows of the museum for his provocative new artwork as a striking reminder of the ongoing migrant crisis, inaugurated Tuesday on World Refugee Day. less Part of a new artwork by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, entitled Soleil Levant' (sunrise in French) made from over 3,500 lifejackets discarded by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos, following its ... more Photo: James Brooks, AP

Migrant lifejackets turned into artwork in Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) In the sun-soaked setting of Copenhagen's Nyhavn harbour, there is a striking reminder of the ongoing migrant crisis taking place on Europe's shores.

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has barricaded the windows of the Kunsthal Charlottenborg museum with more than 3,500 salvaged lifejackets worn by migrants and collected on the Greek island of Lesbos.

The artwork is named "Soleil Levant" French for "Sunrise" and was inaugurated Tuesday, which is World Refugee Day.

"Obviously Ai Weiwei wants to put attention to the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe, or as he calls it, the human crisis," says Kunsthal Charlottenborg director Michael Thouber.

"The beautiful thing about this piece is that every one of these lifejackets, 3,500 lifejackets represents a human story."

The title is a reference to French painter Claude Monet's painting "Impression, Soleil Levant" from 1872, which depicted Le Havre harbor and captured the political and social reality of the time.

Ai previously used 14,000 discarded life vests collected from the beaches of Lesbos to wrap the columns of Berlin's Konzerthaus, and they were also used to create lotus blossoms floating in a pond in Vienna's Belvedere Park the work that made Thouber contact Ai and ask him to do something similar in Copenhagen.

"It was absolutely heart-breaking and breathtaking," he says.

Last year, Ai withdrew his works from two Danish museums in protest against a new law that allowed the country's authorities to seize valuables from migrants.

Kunsthal Charlottenborg says the artwork will remain on its facade until Oct. 1.

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Migrant lifejackets turned into artwork in Copenhagen - Albany Times Union

More than 181,000 people, most so-called economic migrants with little chance of being allowed to stay in Europe, attempted to cross the central Mediterranean last year from Libya, Africas nearest stretch of coast to Italy. About 4,500 died or disappeared.

Hundreds already have taken to the sea this month, braving the winter weather. In the latest reminder of the journeys perils, more than 100 people were missing off Libyas coast over the weekend after a migrant boat sunk.

Some European leaders are warning of a fresh migration crisis when sea waters warm again and more people choose to put their lives in the hands of smugglers.

Come next spring, the number of people crossing over the Mediterranean will reach record levels, Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose country holds the European Unions presidency, predicted. The choice is trying to do something now, or meeting urgently in April, May and try to do a deal then.

The 28-nation EU already has a controversial deal to stem the flow of migrants from Turkey, which has agreed to try to stop the number of migrants leaving the country and to take back thousands more in exchange for billions of euros to help Syrian refugees in Turkey, visa-free travel for its citizens and fast-track EU membership talks.

Now, the EU wants to adapt this outsourcing pact to the African nations migrants are leaving or jumping off from to reach Europe, despite criticism that the agreement sends asylum seekers back to countries that could be unsafe for them.

The bottom line is that the Turkey deal works. The number of people arriving in the Greek islands, for instance, plunged over the last year despite political wrangling over whether Turkeys government was respecting the conditions to secure visa-free travel in Europes Schengen area, where passport checks are not required.

And EU nations have even fewer scruples about turning away migrants who take the central Mediterranean route to Italy since they mostly are job seekers who would be ineligible for asylum.

Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Mali and Chad are all on the EUs radar, and dealing with them is proving expensive. But the blocs arrangement with Turkey has shown that the best way of stemming migrant flows is to stop people taking to the sea. Libya and Egypt are the main migrant departure points, and pacts with them would probably have the biggest immediate impact.

Muscat wants to build on a deal Italy is trying to reach with Libya by adding EU funds and other support. He also thinks the EUs anti-smuggler naval mission, Operation Sophia, should be extended into Libyan territorial waters to stop people in unsafe boats from reaching open waters.

Easier said than done. The EU has been unable to secure United Nations backing for such a move, and Libya has no central authority with the reach or stability to negotiate a long-term agreement with the Europeans.

The reality of Libya right now is that there is no unified government controlling all parts of the country, and no end of groups willing to upend things if there is an advantage in it for them, Carlo Binda, a Libya expert with Malta-based political and development advisers, Binda Consulting International.

Libyas neighbor Egypt appears a more viable option. Many people have set out from the country bound for Europe in recent months, mainly migrants from the Horn of Africa trying to avoid dangerous Libya and increasingly Egyptians themselves, according to the EUs border agency Frontex.

Despite some instability, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a former general who led the 2013 military removal of an elected Islamist president, is a man with whom the Europeans feel they can do business. Sissi also wields plenty of influence in Libya.

Egypts economy has been battered by unrest since the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. If there is one thing the worlds biggest trading bloc does well, it is raise funds to pay for its problems.

Egypt is the country with which one could come to some sort of agreement, Maltese Foreign Minister George Vella said. There is stability to a certain extent, and they are interested because even they themselves have got their own problem with migration.

Time is of the essence. The EU has for several years tried to cobble together migration polices while people were dying at sea.

The refugee emergency Europes worst since World War II also has raised tensions among EU member countries. Some countries have erected anti-migrant fences or reintroduced border controls amid deep disagreement over how to manage the challenge.

Things are getting complicated. I would rather face the music now, Muscat said.

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Crisis Warnings Sound as EU Gears Up For New Migrant Wave