African migrants crisis

In the Mediterranean’s largest recorded loss of life from a migrant ship incident, at least 800 people died on a ship holding African migrants heading from Libya to Europe on April 19 when it capsized after crashing into a merchant ship attempting to assist it. The captain of the migrant ship has been charged in Italy with manslaughter. 

On April 24, 14 migrants, part of a group of more than 50 traveling on foot through Turkey and Greece from Somalia and Afghanistan, were struck by a train and killed in Macedonia.

From the beginning of 2015 through April, more than 20,000 migrants from Africa crossed into Europe via the Mediterranean, most to the Italian island of Lampedusa, only 70 miles from Tunisia. 

In the same four months, more than 35,000 African migrants crossed into Europe through all routes. An estimated 1,700 of those migrants died attempting the journey, a number more than half of the estimated 3,200 such deaths in all of 2014. Most of the African migrants are from sub-Saharan nations.