European Border and Coast Guard

Security forces and Coast Guard units rescued approximately 24,000 migrants in Turkish seas last year, while 20 lost their lives on perilous routes, the Transport and Infrastructure Ministry has announced.

Irregular immigration to the EU from Western Africa rose more than ten times on the year in January, according to the bloc's Frontex border agency, which expects overall arrivals to grow in 2024 and says halting the movement of people completely is impossible.

There is a significant increase in the number of illegal border crossings in the EU for 2023, totaling around 380,000, with a rise in arrivals from the Mediterranean Sea. This was announced by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency ("Frontex").

Irregular border crossings into the European Union reached an eight-year high in 2023, the EU's border and coast guard agency has said.

According to preliminary calculations by Frontex, approximately 380,000 people irregularly entered into the EU last year, the highest level since 2016.

Two migrants were killed and 30 were rescued in Greece on Wednesday after a dinghy crashed into rocks in high winds on the island of Lesvos, local authorities said.

The incident occurred near the resort town of Thermi on the east of the island, facing the nearby coast of Turkey.

Chief Commissioner Anton Zlatanov from Bulgaria's Border Police addressed recent developments regarding Bulgaria's Schengen entry and the evolving migrant situation in Europe.

The Austrian government has specified five prerequisites for potentially lifting checks at Schengen land borders for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, as detailed in a statement released after the European Council's decision to open air and sea borders for both countries on December 29.

A joint European operation to repatriate  irregular migrants was organized on Wednesday by Greece along with Spain, Italy and Cyprus, in cooperation with the Hellenic Police and coordinated by the EU border agency, Frontex. 

Greece repatriated 20 Georgians and 28 Pakistanis whose applications for asylum had been rejected. 

Strong winds are hampering the ongoing search for 12 seamen who have been missing since the freighter they were sailing on went down near the northeastern Aegean island of Lesvos on Sunday.

Greek authorities confirmed on Monday the identification of the body discovered at sea on Sunday as that of an Egyptian sailor from the crew of the sunken freighter Raptor. The vessel sank off the coast of Lesvos on Sunday morning, leaving 12 out of the 14 crew members still missing.