50,000 migrants have died or disappeared worldwide since 2014 (IOM)

AA / Peter Kum

More than 50,000 deaths have been recorded along various migrant routes around the world since 2014, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday, with more than half (29,000) of these deaths occurring in and within Europe. 25,000 for the Mediterranean alone.

But this UN responsible for immigration. According to the agency, if the number is “symbolic of the continuing crisis of unsecured migration around the world, these deaths represent only a fraction of the true total”.

No state currently publishes statistics on immigrant deaths or deportations for protection.

“Of the 51,194 people registered in the Missing Migrants Program database since 2014, more than 30,000 are listed with unknown, unspecified or presumed nationality,” the IOM said.

That means more than 60% of people who die on migration routes are still unidentified, according to the UN.

Of those whose country of origin was identified, more than 9,000 were from African countries, 6,500 from Asian countries, and more than 3,000 from the Americas.
According to data compiled on November 15, 2022, the top ten known countries are: Afghanistan (1795), Myanmar (1467), Syria (1118), Ethiopia (867), Mexico (755), Morocco (702), Algeria (653), Venezuela ( 494), Guatemala (463) and Haiti (451).

A large and disproportionately large number of bodies were not recovered along the European routes, with at least 16,000 missing and presumed dead at sea en route to and from Europe. In fact, this means that at least one in two people lost on Europe’s migration routes have not been found and identified.

Although more than 25,000 deaths are documented on Mediterranean crossings, the most dangerous routes known in any given year, the increase in recent years is largely due to many deaths on the West African route.-Atlantic.

According to the IOM, this sea crossing is mainly used by West and North Africans trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands.

“On all shipping routes to Europe, ‘invisible shipwrecks’ – where no search and rescue is carried out and no remains are found – are incredibly difficult to verify, so the number of deaths on these routes is almost certainly underestimated,” the IOM said.

Africa’s most dangerous known route is through the Sahara desert, with more than 5,600 deaths recorded since 2014, although other reports indicate many more have disappeared than are currently being recorded.

For example, many studies show that people traveling through the Sahara desert often fall off the backs of overloaded trucks – or are thrown out of fear of spreading disease – and left in very remote areas.

In the face of these alarming data, IOM notes that obligations arising from international law, including the right to life, must be respected at all times.

A way to remind the international community to “work together to prevent and reduce the number of additional deaths”.

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