Nearly 300,000 immigrants
illegally crossed European Union borders in 2014, two and a half
times the number in 2013, said European border protection agency
Frontex on Wednesday.
In 2014, Italy registered more than half of the total, or
170,757 of the 278,000 immigrants to the EU.
Frontex said the sharp increase is due to Syrian and Iraqi
refugees, calling the mass exodus the worst refugee crisis since
the Second World War.
The most common port of entry is through airports, and
Frontex said the majority of illegal immigrants currently living
within European borders arrived legally on visas that have since
expired.
In Italy, where immigrants arrive primarily through the
eastern Mediterranean ports in Calabria and Puglia, the largest
number of immigrants in 2014 came from Syria, followed by
Eritrea and Sub-saharan Africa, Frontex said.
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