Boat Carrying at Least 600 Refugees Sinks Off the Coast of Egypt

Reports indicate that a boat carrying at least 600 refugees sank off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday morning, September 31. The bodies of 29 individuals, including a child, have been found in Egyptian waters, and 150 people have been rescued by the country's coast guard. According to Egyptian officials, most of the refugees are from African countries, Egypt, and Syria. Rescue operations for other refugees in the Mediterranean port waters of 'Rosetta' are still ongoing. Since the European Union tightened entry conditions to Europe and Balkan countries closed their borders to refugees, the shores of Egypt have become one of the new options for human traffickers to transport refugees to Europe. According to the United Nations, over ten thousand refugees have lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014. The UN reported that 300,000 refugees have reached the shores and land borders of European countries this year and confirmed a decrease in the number of refugees in the first nine months of this year. In the same period last year, 520,000 refugees managed to reach Europe through various means. However, despite the decrease in the number of refugees taking dangerous routes to European countries, the death toll has increased, and according to the UN Refugee Agency, this year is the deadliest year for those trying to reach Europe from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In recent years, Greece and Italy have witnessed an influx of refugees who have endured heavy costs to reach the shores of these two countries. In this year alone, over 130,000 people have entered Italy, and 165,000 have entered Greece. Since March of last year, when the EU and Turkey reached an agreement to control the movement of refugees, the number of those reaching Greece from Turkey has halved. Nevertheless, according to the UN, over one million refugees need to be resettled in various countries around the world this year. At the first UN Refugee Conference held a few days ago on the sidelines of the General Assembly, attended by most leaders of member countries, fifty countries committed to accepting over 360,000 refugees in their countries. Participants also pledged to increase the budget for addressing the refugee situation by four and a half billion dollars compared to 2015.