Migrants death toll in desperate boat trips hits 2,500 - as doomed journeys head to UK
ILLEGAL sea crossings to Europe have claimed the lives of 2,500 migrants this year alone, shocking new figures have shown.
Official estimates suggest 880 people died last week alone as migrants make desperate trip to Europe
Thus far 2016 is proving to be particularly deadly
It comes as a new route opens up in the British Channel raising fears the UK's shoreline will be hit by fatalities.
In the last week 880 people making perilous crossings to EU countries have been killed, according to the UN refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The soaring death toll, up 35 per cent from last year, was announced in Geneva on Tuesday.
William Spindler, spokesman for the UNHCR said: "Thus far 2016 is proving to be particularly deadly."
The figures comes as it is revealed migrants are now attempting to commandeer French boats and sail across the cold, choppy Channel.
The shocking revelation about the new migrant trip has sparked fears hundreds could be killed in the waters which are unsafe for inexperienced boaters.
Last year 1,855 died in the first five months of 2015, but fewer than 60 died in the same period in 2014.
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The UNHCR also revealed 880 migrants drowned in a series of sinkings and wrecks in the past week.
It was recently suggested migrants from Syria are making their way to Libya, to then move on to Europe.
But Spindler said that the U.N. Refugee Agency had not seen evidence of "a significant diversion of Syrians, Afghans or Iraqis from the Turkey-Greece route to the Central Mediterranean one".
He said: "The principal nationalities on the Libya to Italy route so far this year have been Nigerians and Gambians, although among countries more commonly associated with refugee movements, nine per cent have been Somalis and eight per cent Eritreans."
The deaths come as the Channel is revealed as new migrant route
The UNHCR spokesman said the central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy was "dramatically more dangerous" than the Turkey-Greece route taken by most migrants.
Last week there were three major sinkings off Libya, but Spindeler revealed officials had subsequently learned that 46 were missing from a raft carrying 125 people that deflated, eight had been lost overboard from another and four died in a fire on board another.
Most of the migrants in the recent wrecks were from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, the U.N refugee agency said last week.
A huge boat capsized off the Libya coast on a voyage to Italy
The boats leaving from the Sabratah area west of Libya's capital, Tripoli, often carry many more migrants than those on the Greek route, with some 600 being taken at once.
The odds of dying on this route are one in 23.
Less than a quarter of migrants who have made the journey into Europe by sea so far this year took the central Mediterranean route -- 46,714, compared with 156,364 entering Greece by sea.
On the Greek route the chances of death are one in 81.