01 December 2015•Update: 01 December 2015
GENEVA
The UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration have welcomed the outcome of the recently held summit between EU and Turkey in Brussels.
"I think they achieved something quite remarkable, [it] seems to be an agreement for broader resettlement and sharing the responsibility among European countries," International Organization for Migration Leonard Doyle said at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday.
UN spokesman William Spindler said: "We welcome the commitment to a structured and more frequent high-level dialogue between EU and Turkey".
"We continue to call for more legal opportunities for refugees to have access to the EU," Spindler said.
EU and Turkey agreed on Sunday to speed up the country’s EU accession process if Ankara takes steps to stem the flow of refugees coming into Europe.
The EU will also give €3 billion in funding to meet the needs of more than two million Syrian refugees in the country.
-Mediterranean Sea crossings in 2015
According to the International Organization for Migration, the total number of people crossing the Mediterranean Sea in 2015 has reached 878,000, which is four times higher than last year.
"Last year, the total number of sea crossings was around 220,000. So far, this year we have 886,262. It is about the four times higher than last year," Spindler said.
So far, some 3,563 people have died crossing the Mediterranean; 589 of these deaths have been in waters between Greece and Turkey, the organization said.
According to United Nations Children's Fund, since the beginning of this year, more than one in five of the over 870,000 refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean is a child.
