EU’s external borders in 2022: Number of irregular border crossings highest since 2016

In 2022, around 330 000 irregular border crossings were detected at EU’s external border, according to preliminary calculations. This is the highest number since 2016 and an increase of 64% from the previous year.

This was the second year in a row with a steep rise in the number of irregular entries. The Western Balkan route accounted for nearly half of the total. Syrians, Afghans and Tunisians together accounted for 47% of the detections in 2022. The number of Syrians roughly doubled to 94 000.

Women accounted for fewer than one in ten of the detections, while the share of reported minors fell slightly to around 9 percent of all detections.

The number of detections in the Central Mediterranean rose by more than half to well over 100 000 detections. Egyptians, Tunisians and Bangladeshis were the top three nationalities in a year that saw the most arrivals in this region from Libya since 2017 and the most from Tunisia in recent history.