Another 3 million refugees? Really?

Another illustration of how the numbers of the refugee/migration crisis may be inflated, misrepresented or manipulated was brought to my attention by Professor David Ingleby (see my article on Frontex for another example). Many media are reporting with definitive headlines that the EU is expecting ‘another 3 million refugees and migrants in 2016′ (emphasis added). A few examples below:

Even The Guardian, although it didn’t put the 3 million figure in a title, says “more than three million more people are expected to arrive in the EU by the end of next year“, and so on.

The key elements of the headlines are: 1) ‘another’ which reads as ‘on top of the current arrivals’, and b)  ‘by/in 2016’ which reads either as ‘from now to the end of 2016’ or  ‘in 2016 alone’. Both elements however one interprets them are wrong.

In fact, the EC forecast they refer to  is not…