The refugee crisis in 2015, also known as the migration crisis, was a crisis that culminated in Europe in the second half of 2015 when a large number of refugees and migrants tried to get to the European Union to seek asylum. Most of the asylum seekers came from the Middle East (mainly Syria), South Asia (mainly Afghanistan) or Africa and went to Europe across the Mediterranean, in many cases in seaworthy boats that capsized on the way, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people.The large number of asylum seekers in the European Union - a total of 1.32 million people in 2015, in turn put a great strain on national asylum systems in several Member States. The term crisis is used both for the conditions that are assumed to be behind the asylum seekers' journey to Europe, including the large number of deaths and drowning accidents, and for the tasks that many European countries were faced with when they were forced to care for many asylum seekers in a short time.