At least 8,565 people died in 2023 traveling the world’s migratory routes, making last year the deadliest on record, the Missing Migrants Project of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said yesterday.
The number of deaths in 2023 represents an increase of 20% compared to 2022, says the organization, highlighting, in a statement released yesterday, the “urgent need for measures to prevent further loss of life”.
Last year’s total exceeds the record number of deaths and missing people worldwide that had been recorded in 2016, when 8,084 people died during migration.
The Mediterranean crossing remains the deadliest route for migrants, with at least 3,129 deaths and missing people, which is the highest death toll in the region since 2017.
But the IOM also recorded, in 2023, unprecedented numbers of migrant deaths in Africa (1,866) and Asia (2,138).
In Africa, most of these deaths occurred in the Sahara desert and on the sea route to the Canary Islands, while in Asia, the worst situation was experienced by Afghan refugees and ‘Rohingyas’, an ethnic group mainly from Myanmar.
The IOM project, which marks 10 years of existence this year, has seen more than 63,000 migrants killed around the world in the last decade, almost half of which were due to drowning.
In fact, the crossing of the Mediterranean Sea resulted in at least 22,953 deaths in 10 years, just on what is considered the worst route, the Central Mediterranean, which leaves Libya, Algeria and Tunisia towards Europe, namely Italy and Malta.
“As we mark 10 years of the Missing Migrants Project, we begin by remembering all the lives lost.
Each is a terrible human tragedy that will have repercussions on families and communities for years to come,” said IOM Deputy Director General Ugochi Daniels, quoted in the organization’s report.
But “these horrific numbers collected by the Missing Migrants Project are also a reminder that we must recommit ourselves to greater action that can guarantee safe migration for all, so that 10 years from now people will not have to continue risking their their lives in search of a better life”, he defended.
The Missing Migrants Project was created in 2014, following two devastating shipwrecks off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy, and is recognized as the only indicator that measures the level of “safety” of migration in the Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Compact for a Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
Ten years later, it is now the only open access database on migrant deaths and disappearances, but it assumes that the number of real cases worldwide should be much higher than the 63,000 documented.
The remains of more than 26,000 people who lost their lives during migration have not been recovered, the document states, explaining that data collection faces many challenges, especially in remote locations, such as Darién National Park, Panama, and the maritime routes, where the IOM regularly reports “invisible shipwrecks”, in which boats full of migrants disappear without a trace.
