The number of asylum seekers who fled Tunisia last year quadrupled, while departures from Algeria tripled and those from Libya increased by nearly two thirds, according to a UNHCR report.

But while these departures saw the number of people landing in Italy almost tripling in 2020, those who sought asylum in Malta and Spain dropped, with at least 1,064 people dying or going missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

In all, around 55,300 people arrived in Malta, Spain and Italy through the central and western Mediterranean routes, representing an overall increase of 24% over the previous year, according to UNHCR's 2021 action plan for western and central Mediterranean Sea routes.

Photo from UNHCR's Routes towards the western and central Mediterranean Sea action plan.

The UN’s human rights agency warned that several will continue to seek asylum out of Africa. Escalating conflict and displacement in the Sahel has forced some 2.9 million people to flee, and the dire conditions in neighbouring countries and lack of safe and legal pathways will continue to see many attempting risky sea journeys, it said.

It acknowledged that the reception conditions and asylum capacity in frontline countries remained under severe strain.

There were also “significant” challenges to address the basic needs of arrivals and process their asylum applications to ensure that those who do not require international protection are quickly identified and returned as a means of discouraging further arrivals.

Malta and other EU border countries have repeatedly complained about lack of solidarity by other member states. Foreign Affairs Minister Evarist Bartolo last year said that just 8% of asylum seekers processed by Malta in the past 15 years had been officially relocated to other member states.

According to the UNHCR, "the COVID pandemic further compounded the situation given the difficulty of implementing necessary physical distancing and other preventive measures in reception centres, some of which are severely overcrowded.

“States were forced to adapt their national procedures for disembarkation, putting in place offshore and onshore quarantine spaces… The lack of a coordinated European response to rescue at sea and disembarkation also continued to pose serious challenges, and increased risks associated with crossing the central and west Mediterranean Sea.”

After Malta closed its ports last March due to COVID-19, hundreds of migrants were kept on tourist vessels outside Maltese waters, with the cost covered by taxpayers’ money.

Last year, the country also refused to allow migrants rescued at sea by a livestock carrier, the MV Talia and Danish tanker Maersk Etienne.

On Wednesday, the UNHCR called for strengthened search-and-rescue capacity and for the lifting of administrative barriers for NGOs to carry out such operations or for commercial ships to disembark to places of safety and without delay the people they have rescued.

UNHCR is seeking over $100 million to enhance refugee protection in African countries en route to the Mediterranean. 

Photo from UNHCR's Routes towards the western and central Mediterranean Sea action plan.

They left those unable to walk behind - Nigerian woman in Malta

Our water was finished… Life was not easy, there was no food, nothing at all to eat. 

They carried us very far into the desert which was littered with dead bodies. When anybody was unable to walk, they left the person and continued their journey. There was no other choice than to continue. We struggled to follow them through the desert.

If you ask for water, they shoot you - unaccompanied Somali boy in Malta

I spent only six days in the desert, some people spend much more time - like one month - in the desert. I was lucky. When you are crossing through the road, you find dead people who were killed. People who died of dehydration.

Sometimes you spend 24 hours without water… The worst was seeing people on the side of the road who had died of dehydration, lack of water. I witnessed this. Because although the Libyan drivers have water, if you ask them to give you some water, maybe they shoot you because they have guns. So, you do not ask.