Major Shifts in Irregular Border Crossings Along Key Routes

Conflicts, climate-related disasters and economic pressures have continued to drive ever more people from their homes in search of security and a better life. While the vast majority of migrants moving to Europe follow legal routes, many resort to crossing international borders without authorization each year. This often includes dangerous (and in many cases deadly) passages. 

The following chart shows how 2024 has seen major shifts in the patterns of irregular border detections since 2023. This data was collected between January and November of 2024 by Frontex, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders. The organization highlights that detections are different from the number of persons, as the same person may cross an external border several times. Currently there is no EU system in place capable of tracing each person’s movements following an illegal border-crossing.

According to Frontex, overall detected irregular border crossings into the European Union were down by 40 percent in the first 11 months of this year. This was mostly driven by the drop in detections of people making crossings in the Western Balkans (-79 percent) and the Central Mediterranean (-59 percent). Despite this decline, the latter route still had the second highest number of detections of the six key routes at 62,034. 

But several borders have also seen increases. For example, Frontex recorded a total of 41,756 detections of people making crossings along the West African route, which is up 19 percent since 2022. This puts the total at the highest level since Frontex began collecting data in 2009 and is likely due to a deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the region. According to the source, criminal networks are intensifying their operations along this route, sending an increasing number of people by boat to the Canary Islands.

Along the Eastern Mediterranean passage there has also been an increase of 18 percent in the first 11 months of the year. According to the International Organization for Migration, 2,233 people have been recorded as either dead or missing in the Mediterranean Sea this year alone, with the Central Mediterranean having claimed the lives of 1,658, the Western Mediterranean 409 lives, the Eastern Mediterranean 164 and Western Africa/Atlantic route to the Canary Islands 2.

Meanwhile, the Eastern land border saw the highest increase of all borders, as it was up 200 percent from the year before, bringing the figure to 16,530. The overwhelming majority of these were Ukrainian men of military age (13,847 Ukrainian detections). Trailing some way behind were groups of nationals from Ethiopia (426), Somalia (415), Eritrea (405) and Syria (365).

Nationals from Syria, Mali, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Afghanistan made up the five biggest groups of people stopped at these six borders to the EU, in addition to the circular route in Albania and Greece, between January and September, 2024. Data shows that Syrians were also the biggest group in 2023, accounting for 27.8 percent of total irregular detections. In the full 12 months, 107,080 Syrian irregular border crossings were reported - triple the 35,198 detections in the first 11 months of this year. In 2023, the second biggest group of nationals were Guineans (5.6 percent) and the third Senegalese (5.2 percent).