MAP. More than 25,000 migrants have died or gone missing in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014

According to data from the “Missing Migrants Project” led by a UN agency, the Mediterranean is the deadliest route in the world for migrants.

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Migrants sail aboard a wooden boat before a rescue by the"ocean viking", on August 27, 2022, south of Lampedusa (Italy).  (JEREMIAS GONZALEZ / AP / SIPA)

There may be “hundreds” additional deaths. Only 78 bodies have been identified after the sinking of a boat carrying migrants off Greece on Wednesday June 14. A hundred people were rescued, but photos of the boat released by the Greek media suggest that the toll will be one of the heaviest in the country’s recent history.

>> Shipwreck of migrants in Greece: crossing the Mediterranean, an increasingly perilous route for exiles

How many perish each year trying to reach Europe? The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been trying to determine, since 2014, the number of dead or missing exiles in the world, through its “Missing Migrants Project”. Created after a double shipwreck, in October 2013, near the Italian island of Lampedusa, the initiative centralizes all the data, everywhere in the world.

Nearly 2,000 migrants died in other circumstances

Their analysis tells us that the Mediterranean is the deadliest migration route in the world. On the 56,216 migrants who have disappeared across the world since 2014, nearly half, 25,080 people, died there by drowning or disappeared during a shipwreck. Hundreds of others lost their lives in other circumstances, before or during the crossing: 1,967 people died of illness or lack of water and food, vehicle accidents (these deaths are not located on this map).

The biggest shipwreck in recent years took place on April 18, 2015, 193 km from the island of Lampedusa, where 1,022 migrants died, according to the IOM. alone 28 people were saved. A year later, on May 25 and 26, 2016, 805 migrants died or went missing off the coast of Libya while trying to reach Europe.


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