Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri speaks during a media conference in Brussels on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018. The European Union's border guard chief, Fabrice Leggeri, on Tuesday unveiled the agency's migration risk assessment for 2018. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
The Associated Press
BRUSSELS (AP) - The head of the European Union's border agency says the number of migrants trying to reach Europe through the Mediterranean will remain high this year, with more expected to arrive through Spain.
Fabrice Leggeri told reporters Tuesday that "the irregular migration pressure on the southern borders in the Mediterranean will remain at a very high level."
He said that "especially the western Mediterranean route is under scrutiny." About 21,000 unauthorized migrants - mostly from Morocco, Algeria and Guinea - entered Spain in 2017.
Leggeri said overall numbers have decreased since 2015, when 1.8 million people entered Europe. Crossings into Greece are down 80 percent from last year, but he said "of course there is still pressure."
He expressed concern that EU countries are sending fewer unauthorized migrants home.
In this photo taken on Sunday Feb. 18, 2018 photo, a man stands on the deck after being rescued by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, 60 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Olmo Calvo)
The Associated Press
In this photo taken on Sunday Feb. 18, 2018 photo, refugees and migrants wait to be rescued by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, 60 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Olmo Calvo)
The Associated Press
Turkish gendarmerie officers and workers with Turkey's Emergency and Disaster authority carry bodies of two children, by the river Meric at the border with Greece, in the northwestern province of Edirne, Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018. Turkey's state-run news agency says rescue teams, searching for survivors of a migrant boat that capsized in the river along the Turkish-Greek border, have recovered the bodies of two children. Up to 10 migrants, including women and children, are believed to be missing while trying to reach Greece on a rubber boat across the river known as Meric in Turkish and Evros in Greek. (AP Photo/Ergin Yildiz)
The Associated Press