Joel Millman said Tuesday that 4,027 migrants died worldwide between January 1 and July 31, about three-quarters of them in the Mediterranean.
Advertisement
At this point past year, Missing Migrants Project tallied 2991 – which means that already in 2016 the world has witnessed over 1000 more fatalities than occurred in 2015’s first seven months, a 26 per cent increase.
Millman reported that 120 bodies were discovered during the last 10 days on the Libyan coasts.
In Europe, IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has recorded 26 deaths during migration on land in 2016, slightly lower than the 31 recorded from January-July a year ago.
The number of migrants trying to reach Europe via the Greek islands has dropped sharply since an EU-Turkey deal created to stem the flow was agreed in March.
Besides the Mediterranean, North Africa was this year the most risky region for candidates to migration, with 342 dead.
Some migrants passing through the region have been killed by people smugglers or “national authorities”, IOM said, warning over the rise in violent deaths of migrants on the North African route.
The office said in a statement Tuesday that this was an increase of 30,700, or 263 percent, compared with the previous year. Of these, 64 were of Syrian asylum seekers, reportedly shot by Turkish border guards. IOM’s Missing Migrants Project cites reports from Human Rights Watch and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights for these data.
The longer and more unsafe route through the central Mediterranean has become more important since a deal between the European Union and Turkey in March largely blocked access to Greece.
For the third straight year IOM will report migration fatalities of at least 3,000 men, women and children on these risky sea routes.
Three-quarters of these refugee, 3,120 of them, Millman said, died in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe. Some of those rescued are still on their way to Italy.
Some 94,500 people have arrived in Italy by sea this year, on par with last year, according to the International Organisation for Migration…
Advertisement
Sunday’s rescue missions off the Libyan coast brought 1,100 migrants and refugees to safety overall, bringing the total to 6,530 since Thursday, said the Italian coastguard which coordinates the operations.
