The International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants Project has found that one in 29 migrants died while crossing between North Africa and Italy through a route referred to as the Central Mediterranean in the first six months of 2016.
They also registered a 28 percent increase in migrant deaths when comparing this period in 2016 with the same period last year and a 52 percent increase over 2014. By comparison, as the report which was released last week states, the Eastern Mediterranean route between Turkey and Greece has seen the deaths of one in 410.
19 September will see world leaders convening at the United Nations in New York to discuss how to address the current immigration crisis with the final aim of ensuring that migration is “orderly, safe, regular and responsible.” This in light of the fact that more than 3,700 people either went missing of died while migrating around the world in the first half of 2016.
Until quite recently, no international agency tracked how many migrants died or went missing during journeys that often involve crossing deserts and oceans and relying on smugglers. Thanks to the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project, which launched in 2013, we now have a better idea of how many migrants die before they reach their destination.
According to the report and media all over the world this past year, the Mediterranean Sea hugely outweighs any other region in terms of number of migrants recorded missing or dead. Of all the deaths recorded in 2016, 78 percent of them amounting to 2,901 were all in this region.
Routes to get to and through Europe include crossing the Sahara Desert to reach departure points to Italy and moving through the Middle East to reach Greece. According to the report, “324 deaths have been recorded of people migrating northwards from Niger and the Horn of Africa into Libya and Egypt in the first six months of 2016.” This marked a 350 percent increase from 2015 and the IOM’s data shows a marked increase in deaths caused by violence and the carelessness of smugglers and North African national authorities.
Data also shows the deaths of 81 people migrating within the Middle East with at least 69 of them being Syrian nationals, 64 reportedly killed at the Syrian Arab Republic-Turkey border by Turkish border guards. 22 further migrant deaths were recorded in continental Europe with seven meeting their demise by falling off or getting hit by trucks or trains, five drowning and five of exposure.