Frontex, the EU’s external border force, put the number of migrants crossing into Europe in 2015 at 1.8 million.

The actual number of asylum claimants was 1,321,560, but add non-EU recipient states such as Norway and Switzerland and the total is closer to 1.5 million. The origins of first-time asylum applicants to Europe in 2015 are shown in Table 1. By far the largest numbers were from the war-ravaged countries of Syria and Afghanistan. Indeed, migrants from these countries largely caused the European migration crisis and dominated the headlines through 2015 and into 2016. The top African source country was Eritrea, just seventh in the overall rankings. The vast majority of migrants, some 800,000, arrived by sea, but some have made their way over land, principally via Turkey and Albania.

Winter has not stemmed the flow – 135,711 people reached Europe by sea during the first two of months of 2016. Migrants from the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Central Asia have diverted attention from African migrants crossing the central, and to a much lesser extent the western, Mediterranean.

As the EU agreement with Turkey begins to take effect, the onset of summer and a calmer Mediterranean is likely to throw the spotlight back onto the dangerous reaches of the central region of the sea.

In 2015, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded 3,771 deaths of migrants on the Mediterranean, of which 2,892 occurred in the central area. An additional 32 died en route to the Canary Islands.

Most of those who drowned in the central Mediterranean had crossed the Sahara and were trying to make it to the island of Lampedusa, the coast of Italy, Malta, or parts of Greece. Experts believe that Italy will be the main target this year of what is expected to be a huge increase over 2015 of migrants heading from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe. Foreseeing a potentially massive disaster in the central Mediterranean this summer, not to mention the exacerbation of the migration crisis within Europe, some 50–60 African and European leaders held a two-day summit in Valletta, Malta, on 11–12 November 2015 on migration between the two continents. The primary result was an agreement to establish an emergency trust fund to help development in African countries, as well as to encourage those countries to take back migrants who have arrived in Europe. The fund pledged €1.8 billion (US$2 billion) in aid, which could double, and other development assistance worth €20 billion (US$23 billion) every year.

The fund will target the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and the Lake Chad region. The group also promised to promote regular migration channels and to implement policies for integrating migrants into society. The key component in this effort is that African leaders have agreed, in return for such substantial payments, to the deportation of unwanted migrants from Europe.