Abstract During the last two years, hundreds of thousands of refugees have traveled across the Mediterranean Sea, in perilous conditions and unsafe boats, resulting in thousands of dead and missing, despite the best rescue efforts from both sides. Data analysis and statistics may have an answer for the challenging task of predicting the flows of incoming boats and assisting in the prompt allocation of Search & Rescue (SAR) resources at the frontlines.

This is a short introductory article. For full technical details see: Georgiou H, Kiomourtzis I, Alexakos F, ‘Refugee influx analysis for smart early-warning systems for the rescue/relief operations in the first-reception islands’, SafeEvros 2016: New technologies for Civil Protection services, 22-25 June 2016 @ Alexandroupolis, Greece. http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.59728 , http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.59727