Half as many migrants landed in Europe in 2017 as 2016, IOM says

Slightly fewer than half as many migrants reached Europe by sea in 2017 than 2016, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Friday, with curbs finally cutting traffic on the deadly route from Libya to Italy. 

Two years after more than a million people entered the EU, mostly fleeing war in the Middle East and poverty in Africa, the IOM recorded 171,635 arrivals by boat in 2017. The 2016 figure was 363,504.

The biggest influx of refugees and migrants in Europe since World War Two caused a political and humanitarian crisis two years ago. 

Since then, the main Eastern Mediterranean route between Turkey and Greece has largely been shut by a deal between the EU and Ankara. 

Reducing traffic has been slower on the other main route, across the central Mediterranean from North Africa to Italy, where thousands of people have died at sea. But numbers...