Out of sight, out of mind?

A year after hundreds of thousands of refugees snaked their way across southeastern Europe and onto global television screens, the roads through the Balkans are now clear, depriving an arguably worsening tragedy of poignant visibility.

Europe's migrant crisis is at the very least numerically worse than it was last year. More people are arriving and more are dying. But the twist is that, compared with last year, a lot of it is out of sight.

More than one million people fleeing conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan made their way to Europe last year, with the majority of them crossing the precarious sea corridor separating Greece and Turkey, the temporary home for more than 2 million refugees displaced from Syria. They came carrying their worldly belongings in plastic bags and hauling babies on weary shoulders, a visual exodus of the kind not seen in Europe since the end of World War Two.

But they are not so nearly visible there - nor are the ones still coming.

According to data from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), arrivals are up 17 percent on last year. Deaths among those trying to get to Europe, mainly due to drowning, are up more than 15 percent.

"By outsourcing the responsibility to Turkey and to Greece, European governments are basically saying 'we have solved the crisis because we don't see it, and we can't smell it and we can't hear it," said Gauri van Gulik, deputy Europe director at Amnesty International.

"The crisis is as big as ever, and as yet unsolved by governments," she told Reuters.

IOM data says that 258,186 people arrived in Europe by the end of July, compared with 219,854 over the same period in 2015.

There were 3,176 fatalities by Aug. 7, outpacing the 2,754 who died in the first eight months of last year, a slightly longer period.

"Its absolutely incredible because if you think about the panic this caused last year and the incentive there was to really get some policy changes in place, nothing has happened," Van Gulik said.