GENEVA, FEBRUARY 22 – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports that 8,269 migrants and refugees have entered Europe by sea through 20 February, a 15 per cent decrease from the 9,765 arriving during the same period last year. Deaths on the three main Mediterranean Sea routes through almost seven weeks of the new year are at 221 individuals – or about one half the 435 deaths that occurred during the same period in 2018 (see chart below).
In Italy, IOM Rome’s Flavio Di Giacomo on Thursday (21/02) reported a total of 227 migrants and refugees have landed in Italy this year, according to official Ministry of Interior figures. He added that since 1 January 2019, a total of 855 migrants have been returned to Libya by the Libyan Coast Guard – or almost four times the total arriving by sea to Italy.
Missing Migrants Project
2019 is the fifth year of IOM’s efforts to systematically record deaths on migration routes worldwide through its Missing Migrants Project (MMP). Since the beginning of 2014, the Project has recorded the deaths of 30,602 people, and yet due to the challenges of collecting information about these people and what happened to them, the true number of deaths during migration is likely much higher.
So far in 2019, Missing Migrants Project has recorded the deaths of 392 people, 221 of those on one of three Mediterranean Sea routes (see chart below).
Since the last week, MMP reported that on 14 February, the remains of three people were found by the Libyan Red Crescent west of Sirte, Libya. The boat in which these people were travelling has not been identified; MMP researchers say there have been no other migrants missing at sea recorded off the coast of Libya since 18 January, with none so far in February.
In Europe, MMP recorded the death of a 34-year-old Algerian man, who died in a hospital in the town of Velika Kladuša, Bosnia and Herzegovina on 2 February from injuries he endured after being hit by a car near the border with Croatia. Missing Migrants Project data are compiled by IOM staff based at its Global Migration Data Analysis Centre but come from a variety of sources, some of which are unofficial. To learn more about how data on migrants’ deaths and disappearances are collected, click here.
See chart below.
For latest arrivals and fatalities in the Mediterranean, click here. Learn more about the Missing Migrants Project. (@OnuItalia)
