The president of the European Center for Information Policy and Security (ECIPS) says countries from Africa and the Middle East must cooperate with Europe in tackling a migrant crisis that involves the three regions, Press TV reports.

In an exclusive interview with Press TV on Tuesday, Ricardo Baretzky said that it would be impossible to find a solution to the migrant crisis without the cooperation of African and Middle Eastern countries.

The migrant crisis “has to have active players not only from Europe, it needs African active players, it needs active players from the Middle East. And we see that there is a lack of interest from these active players who have a responsibility,” he said.

Baretzky noted that the European Union (EU) has a “clear” policy with regard to the issues of illegal immigration and human trafficking, but the key questions is how “to get the policy implemented” in the African and Middle Eastern countries.

“We have a clear vision of what we have to do… The biggest problem is that it is not only for the EU to have a policy, but everybody has to follow the policy and the implementation of the policy. And the problem here is that we find many external players that do not follow these policies,” he said.

The European official attributed the rising wave of illegal immigrations to the ongoing insecurity and instability in North Africa, saying that the most important problem in the region is the lack of law enforcement.

“We are not dealing with… one country, we are dealing with a range of areas in the northern part of Africa… The security in the northern part has to be improved,” he stressed, adding, “Even though many of them (North African countries) have had huge funding and support from the European Union in the past to combat human trafficking, … many of them have failed to do that.”

Baretzky also touched upon the rising threat of the ISIL terrorist group in Libya, saying Takfiri militants can exploit the chaotic situation in the Arab country for their own interests.

The ISIL can exploit the possibilities of human trafficking to “extend its interests into Europe and other stable regions, utilizing this type of entry points,” he said.

Each year, thousands of illegal migrants try to reach Europe through the Mediterranean Sea using unsafe vessels.

Baretzky rejected reports that the refugees and asylum seekers are being maltreated in the EU countries, saying, “They get treated with utmost care.”

“The concept that they are not looked after is a very wrong concept… There is a lot of support from NGOs to help to prepare these people for integration. So the concept that they are just being sent back is not really true… The European Union is making a huge effort to pay attention the well-being of these people,” he pointed out.

New UN figures

Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday that more than 103,000 refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe since the beginning of 2015.

Spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Adrian Edwards said the agency “is stepping up its presence in Greece and in southern Italy in response to the dramatic increase in numbers of refugees and migrants who we have been seeing arriving.”

In what UNHCR described as a “dramatic increase” in arrivals, 54,000 have landed in Italy and 48,000 in Greece, while another 920 have arrived in Spain and 91 in Malta.

Nearly 1,800 people have also drowned in the Mediterranean while attempting to reach Europe so far this year, according to the agency.

At least 3,419 illegal migrants died in the Mediterranean Sea last year, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein.

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