European leaders are meeting to discuss the Mediterranean crisis today as focus on the situation is renewed.

Between 200,000 and 500,000 asylum seekers are thought to be crossing the Mediterranean into western Europe.

As Ireland and other nations defend their record on sheltering asylum seekers, attention is shifting to the factors that are causing desperate populations to flee.

Migration routes are becoming clearer and at risk groups more easily identifiable. Who are the travelling masses?

People from the Middle East, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are moving in the greatest numbers - most are taking either the Balkan route or they are crossing the Mediteranean as they try to start again in the West.

The Balkan route takes them through Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary and on to western Europe.

Those taking the Central Mediterranean route, are moving from North Africa to Italy and Malta.

People travelling along the Mediterranean's other routes - to its east and west - are moving towards Apulia and Calabria in Italy.

The breakdown 

The International Organization for Migration [sic] (IOM) has identified the nations most of the travellers are coming from.

From the Middle East migrants are fleeing conflict in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.

From Asia people are travelling to escape extreme poverty in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In Sub-Saharan African nations like Mali, Eritrea and Ethiopia, political turmoil and religious persecution are forcing people to leave.

Others are also trying to leave poverty, political upheaval and intolerance behind in different parts of Africa - Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Cameroon, Ghana, Gambia, the Sudan, and Senegal are all affected.

The IOM says migrants from the Balkans are also making the journey, perhaps as a result of conflict in the Ukraine.

Fig 1: Asylum seekers arriving in Macedonia summer 2015, IOM statistics, informed by Macedonian Ministry of Internal Affairs

The UN High Commission for Refugees has said many migrants are fleeing war and human rights abuses.

Meanwhile, the IOM says their journeys are becoming even more difficult, with 2,432 deaths already recorded this year. That is 350 more than the number who died over the same period last year.

Federico Soda, Director of IOM’s Coordinating Office for the Mediterranean in Rome says: "In the last few weeks we have seen many deaths. We think that this may be explained by the fact that the smugglers are becoming increasingly violent and cruel. Migrants are forced to stay in the hold, where they asphyxiate". 

Fig 2: This data from the IOM shows the minimum estimated numbers of dead people

Much of the information regarding countries of source has not been independently verified and is based on asylum seekers' accounts.