Over 80% of 22,000 Migrants Travel Andalusia Coast in 2017

More than 22,000 migrants arrived in the Iberian Peninsula in 2017, according to statistics reported by teleSUR correspondent Sergio Rodrigo.

RELATED: 
Don't Suffocate Migrants' Hopes, Pope Says on New Year's Day

The journalist disclosed that the majority of migrants preferred the route near southern Spain off the coast of Andalusia. Rodrigo also added that hundreds die or go missing during the dangerous journey.

"More than 80 percent did so to the coast of Andalusia, more than 222 died or disappeared in transit," he stated in a post on Twitter.

Counter to migrants continuing to undertake the treacherous trip, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's administration initiated the mass deportation of dozens of refugees who were previously being held – for more than a month – at the Migrant Detention Center in Malaga.

The process began less than a week ago on January 3.

Despite citizens' movements denouncing the deportation of migrants, Spain's Ministry of Interior accelerated the expulsion detainees.

Visuals accompanying Rodrigo's report showed activists, who gathered near the detention center to voice their opposition to the treatment being meted out to the detained migrants, in violent clashes with security forces.

On December 19, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) had reported that 3,115 immigrants lost their lives in or around the Mediterranean Sea over the past year.

IOM shared that it registered 168,314 migrants and refugees who entered Europe by sea during in that period.

Approximately 70 percent of them landed in Italy, while the others spread across Cyprus, Greece and Spain.