More than 63,000 people died or disappeared on migration routes over the past decade, with more than a third fleeing conflict.
More than 63,000 people died or disappeared on migration routes around the world over the last decade, with drowning the biggest cause of death, according to the United Nations migration agency.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) published the alarming death toll on Tuesday in a report on its Missing Migrants Project, which has been investigating the disappearances of people fleeing conflict, persecution and poverty since 2014.
Since tracking began, at least 63,285 people have died or are missing and presumed dead, according to the project, with over 8,500 losing their lives in 2023, the deadliest year yet. Nearly 60 percent of deaths documented were linked to drowning, with the number of victims surpassing 36,000.
Of those deaths at sea, more than 27,000 occurred in the Mediterranean, a route followed over the years by many migrants trying to reach southern Europe from northern Africa.
Most deaths in the Central Mediterranean were documented off the coast of Libya. But the IOM had recorded an âincrease in departures and, correspondingly, shipwrecksâ off the coast of Tunisia. At least 729 people died off the Tunisian coast in 2023, compared to 462 the previous year.
âThe figures are quite alarming,â Jorge Galindo, a spokesperson at IOMâs Global Data Institute, told The Associated Press news agency. âWe see that 10 years on, people continue to lose their lives in search of a better one.â
âInvisible shipwrecksâ
The IOM stressed the figures published in the report were incomplete, âlikely only a fraction of the actual number of lives lost worldwideâ because of the difficulty in obtaining and verifying information.
On the Atlantic route from Africaâs west coast to Spainâs Canary Islands, entire boats have reportedly vanished in what are known as âinvisible shipwrecksâ. Similarly, many deaths in the Sahara Desert are believed to go unreported.
Even when deaths are recorded, more than two-thirds of the victims remain unidentified. In more than half of all cases, the IOM was unable to even establish the sex or age of the migrant.
In cases that could be identified, just over one-third came from âcountries in conflict or with large refugee populationsâ.
Despite the limits in the data, the IOM had recorded the deaths of âalmost 5,500 femalesâ on migration routes and ânearly 3,500â children.
The IOM said there was an âurgent need for strengthened search and rescue capacitiesâ, as well as âsafe, regular migration pathwaysâ to prevent further deaths.
At sea, greater assistance was needed for migrants in distress âin line with international law and the principle of humanityâ, the IOM said.
Currently on the Mediterranean Sea, âthe large majority of search and rescue is done by nongovernmental organisationsâ, Galindo said.
Anti-immigration sentiment
When the IOMâs project began in 2014, European sentiment was more sympathetic to the plight of migrants, and the Italian government had launched âMare Nostrum,â a major search-and-rescue mission that saved thousands of lives.
But, with anti-immigration political parties steadily gaining influence across Europe, governments have attempted to curb migration flows to their countries by pledging funds to countries across the Mediterranean such as Tunisia and Egypt.
Earlier this month, the European Union pledged a 7.4-billion euro ($8bn) funding package to Egypt that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described as âthe best way to address migratory flowsâ.