More than 42,000 applied for asylum in Greece last year

More than 42,000 refugees sought asylum in Greece last year, according to the European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion, ESPON, whose statistics showed that a total of 204,718 refugees arrived in the European Union in 2017.

According to the network, 42,305 refugees applied for asylum in Greece after crossing from Turkey in 2017.

Meanwhile, a total of 118,962 people traveled from Libya to Italy, according to the network's data.

The peak crisis year of 2015 saw 1.3 million asylum applications lodged across the 28 member states, chiefly from nationals of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The number of applications was drastically reduced in the spring of 2016 after Turkey signed an agreement with the EU to crack down on human smuggling across the Aegean.

Greece and Italy remain the first port of call for most refugees while Austria...