In the first seven months of this year, the number of illegal border crossings at Europe’s external borders fell by 15% from a year ago to 47 250*. After reaching record lows in April due to restrictions related to COVID-19, the number of irregular migrants detected at Europe’s external borders had been rising over the last three months. In July, the number of illegal border crossings rose by nearly a third from the previous month to 8650. The Central and Western Mediterranean regions saw twice as many arrivals as in June.