The UN’s migration agency on Tuesday said that drowning has emerged as the leading cause of recorded migrant deaths over the past decade, with the death toll surpassing 36,000 victims.
Of the 64,000 migrant deaths recorded over the last decade, nearly 60 percent were linked to drowning, according to a report by the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Of those deaths at sea, over 27,000 occurred in the Mediterranean, a route followed over the years by many migrants trying to reach southern Europe.
The figures in the report were likely a “fraction of the actual number”, the IOM said, while much of the data was incomplete.
The Mediterranean was an “extremely dangerous region and the journeys are extremely risky”, IOM data analyst Andrea Garcia Borja told journalists.
Of the deaths and disappearances recorded, two in three remained unidentified, according to the IOM. And in over half of all cases, the IOM was unable to even establish the sex or age of the migrant.
For those cases where the migrant’s origin could be identified, just over one-third came from “countries in conflict or with large refugee populations”.
The figure highlighted “the dangers faced by those attempting to flee conflict zones without safe pathways”, it said.
Over 8,500 people died on migration routes worldwide in 2023, making it the deadliest year since the IOM started collecting data a decade ago.
So far in 2024, the figures were “no less alarming”, the organization said.
For the Mediterranean route, the number of arrivals had declined relative to 2023, but “the number of deaths are nearly as high as last year”.
