More than 1 million migrants have entered Europe this year

A million migrants have fled their homes in search of better lives in Europe.

(Image credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

published 22 December 2015

Monday marked a milestone in Europe's 2015 migrant crisis. The International Organization for Migration found that, as of Monday, the total number of migrants and refugees crossing into Europe this year passed one million, marking a fourfold increase from last year. At this point, 1,006,000 people have crossed into Europe in 2015.

The majority of these migrants crossed into Europe by sea. More than 800,000 of the migrants, primarily refugees from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, were traveling from Turkey to Greece. The BBC says the United Nations expects that across the world the "number of forcibly displaced people... would 'far surpass' 60 million this year."