(VOVworld) - Persecution, political conflict, and poverty have driven one million people to seek safety in Europe in 2015, according to estimates by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration, IOM.

A volunteer life-guard helps a young girl out of the sea after the boat she used along with her family and other Afghan refugees to cross part of the Aegean from the coast of Turkey to Lesbos towards the end of 2015 crashed on a rock off the island's coast. (Photo: unhcr.org)

Greece is one of six countries that collectively have received more than 800,000 refugees and migrants - 80% of the people who have arrived in Europe by sea this year.

The number of people crossing from North Africa into Italy dropped slightly, from 170,000 in 2014 to around 150,000 in 2015. Bulgaria was the destination of nearly 30,000 people, while only 3,800 people came to Spain.

William Lacy Swing, Director General of the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, said the figures exclude 4,000 people reported missing or drowned.

He said the situation is challenging, forcing Europe to scramble to provide security both for the migrants and for the countries that will become their new home.