More than one million refugees crossed into Europe this year

More than one million migrants and refugees have crossed into Europe this year, the International Organisation for Migration has said.

With just days left in 2015, the Geneva-based intergovernmental organisation said the million mark was crossed on Monday – marking more than a four-fold increase from last year and a symbolic milestone amid the fallout of war, poverty and persecution in Africa and the Middle East.

The IOM said more than 800,000 people crossed into Greece from Turkey, including more than 455,000 from Syria and over 186,000 from Afghanistan.

Nearly 3,700 others died trying to cross the Mediterranean in Europe’s worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.

Germany has seen around one million migrants arrive this year, but that figure includes large numbers of people from Balkan countries who arrived earlier in 2015.