Shipwrecks are the leading cause of death for migrants on the roads of exile according to the UN

More than half of the migrants who lost their lives on the roads of exile over the last decade died at sea, or more than 36,000 deaths, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) published Tuesday March 26. “Search and rescue capabilities to help migrants in distress at sea must be strengthened to help save lives”adds this UN agency in the presentation of a report analyzing the deaths and disappearances of migrants over the past ten years.

According to the IOM’s Missing Migrants project, there have been more than 63,000 cases of dead or missing migrants worldwide since 2014. The real number, however, is much higher due to the difficulty of collecting reliable data. Nearly 60% of these people died from drowning following shipwrecks, adds the IOM, which had already published part of its report at the beginning of March. Many people died in collective shipwrecks and their bodies have not been found. Of the deaths at sea, more than 27,000 occurred in the Mediterranean, a route that many migrants take from North Africa to southern Europe.

In 2023, more than 8,500 people died on the roads of exile around the world, making it the deadliest year since the IOM began compiling this data. In June, one of the worst shipwrecks in the eastern Mediterranean in recent years occurred off the coast of Greece when a fishing boat leaving from Libya with up to 750 people on board capsized. Only 104 people survived and 82 bodies were found.