Migrants won't go away

The United Nations' refugee agency warned on Wednesday of a likely rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of European Parliament elections in May despite a fall in the number of migrant arrivals to Europe in 2018 to a four-year low.

Commissioner Filippo Grandi said the politicisation of migration had made it impossible for countries to allow in even a handful of refugees and there was little hope of change before the elections, when populist and eurosceptic parties are expected to perform well.

"I foresee an actual exacerbation of that rhetoric in the next few months, unfortunately," he told Reuters. Grandi said that even humanitarians understood that anti-migrant rhetoric had won a lot of votes for some politicians. "In the end it is in the interest of everybody, even these [populist] leaders, to find solutions," he said.

The UNHCR report said that, although migrant arrivals had decreased, the number of deaths per attempted crossing of the Mediterranean had risen.

Grandi said this was because the number of campaign group rescue boats had fallen from 10 in 2015 to two now, and because people are taking increasingly dangerous routes due to Italy's tough stance. Italy's government has closed its ports to humanitarian vessels in an effort to force other European Union nations to take a bigger share of migrants rescued in the Mediterranean.