Öykü Altuntaş / Istanbul, Dec 30 () - Number of refugees and migrants who have fled to Europe by sea exceeded one million since the beginning of 2015, said UN Refugee Agency’s recent report.

According to UNHCR, most of these people have fled their home countries in “dangerously inadequate vessels run by people smugglers”, according to recent figures.

More than 80 percent of 1,000,573 people had reached Greece through the Greek island of Lesbos, the agency report said.

Turkey key station for migrants' route

Some 844,000 people among them crossed into Greece through Turkey, it added.

Recent figures also estimated a further 34,000 crossings “by land” from Turkey into Bulgaria and Greece.

“The landmark figure, which was reached late on December 29, also indicated that 84 per cent of those arriving in Europe came from the world's top 10 refugee producing countries, strengthening UNHCR's belief that most of the people arriving in Europe were fleeing war and persecution” said the statement.

Accordingly, the flow caused by war and conflict is currently the “highest seen in Western and Central Europe since the Balkan crises of the 1990s, when several conflicts broke out in the former Yugoslavia”.

One in every two crossings through the Mediterranean, making half a million people, were said to be “Syrians escaping the war in their country” while “Afghans accounted for 20 percent and Iraqis for seven percent”.

Meanwhile, the number of people crossing the Mediterranean rose steadily from up to 5,500 in Jan. and saw a monthly peak in Oct. reaching over 221,000 crossings, the report released on the UNHRC website.