Author: Brillian Bao

By Brillian Bao

ATHENS — Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke to a crowd of more than 1,000 supporters at his final campaign rally Thursday night in Syntagma Square. Over the course of an hour, the prime minister urged those in attendance to vote in Sunday’s national elections, which many opinion polls have projected the prime minister will lose.

Tsipras, who heads Greece’s leftist Syriza party, was elected in 2015 at the height of the country’s financial crisis. Running on a pledge to oppose the severe austerity terms set by Greece’s lenders in return for two international bailouts totaling more than 240 billion euros, Tspiras and his party won 149 of the 300 seats in parliament, just two short of the number needed to govern alone.

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By Brillian Bao

LESBOS, Greece — Though the influx of migrants to Europe has slowed since the refugee crisis began in 2015, the EU remains deeply divided over resettlement and integration plans. Greece has been especially impacted by the crisis because of its proximity to Turkey. Of the reported 26,388 people who have arrived by sea so far this year, 12,258 arrived in Greece, according to the United Nations. While the European Commission has granted Greece more than 816.4 million euros in emergency assistance, some of Greece’s refugee camps continue to receive criticism for poor conditions.

1. How many migrants have arrived in Europe?

The number of arrivals peaked in October 2015, when an estimated 220,579 migrants reached Europe by crossing the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

There are three main migratory routes in the Mediterranean: The Central Mediterranean route (from North Africa to Italy), the Eastern Mediterranean route (from Turkey to Greece), and the Western Mediterranean route (from Morocco to Spain). The EU has focused especially on reducing irregular arrivals along the central route, which is the most-used route of the three.

The graphs in this article are interactive. In the graph below, double-click on the legend to isolate a specific year. Hover over the graph for options to download the plot as a png file, zoom, compare data, and more.

Data Source: IOM

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