across the Mediterranean Sea have declined in 2020, with the UNHCR (2021) detailing a drop from about 123,700 maritime arrivals in 2019 to about 95,000 arrivals in 2020, a closer look reveals shifting dynamics along the different Mediterranean routes. Migrant arrivals have significantly increased along the Central Mediterranean route, indeed more than doubling. In 2020, about 034,150 people arrived in Italy while about 2,300 reached Malta from Libya or Tunisia, while the total figure of arrivals in Italy and Malta stood at about 15,000 in 2019 (UNHCR Italy, 2021; UNHCR Malta, 2021). Along the Eastern Mediterranean route, the situation appears reversed, with numbers of migrant arrivals decreasing considerably after the outbreak of the pandemic, especially from April 2020 onward. While nearly 60,000 people arrived via the sea in 2019, merely about 9,700 did so in 2020 (UNHCR Greece, 2021). Though regularly dominating media headlines, statistics of migrant arrivals tell merely a partial story. Often used to purportedly highlight a marked decline in migration during the pandemic, the drop in overall arrival figures in 2020 reveals little about migratory dynamics, especially the many attempted cross-border movements that were thwarted through obstructions by EUropean authorities and those of third countries. Systematic practices of migrant capture at sea and push-back operations have prevented tens of thousands of women, men and children from reaching EUropean shores. In 2020, about 12,000 people were intercepted in the Central Mediterranean and returned to Libya, while in the whole of 2019 about 9,200 people were intercepted. Migrant interceptions seem to increase even further this year, with over 4,000 people being returned to Libya in merely the first two and a half months of 2021 (IOM Libya, 2021). According to the Tunisian NGO Forum Tunisien pour les Droits Economiques et Sociaux, about 12,000 people were also captured and returned to Tunisia in 2020, - a dramatic increase to 2019, when about 3,500 people were intercepted by the Tunisian Coastguards (InfoMigrants, 2020a). Also in the Aegean region, interceptions by the Turkish Coastguards or push-back operations by Greek authorities have prevented thousands of migrant arrivals. Reports by NGOs and activist groups have revealed violent push-back tactics deployed by the Greek Coastguards who, often masked and armed, systematically sabotaged migrant boats or forced them back into Turkish waters (Alarm Phone, 2020a). Importantly, migrants who had reached Greek waters and even Greek islands only to be pushed back to Turkey were not included in the Greek statistics on migrant arrivals.iv Thus, the Covid-19 pandemic itself has not necessarily slowed down migratory dynamics in and around the Mediterranean Sea. Instead, it has boosted the obstructions that migrants face in crossing borders and claiming asylum, often already before departing from northern African or Turkish shores. This is confirmed by a huge drop of asylum applications in 2020 7