At least 2,480 migrants have died or disappeared in Mediterranean waters so far this year, a figure that already exceeds that of all of 2022 with one month left until the end of 2023, according to updated statistics from the International Organization for Migration ( IOM).
The Missing Migrants Project of this UN agency, which carries out updated monitoring of accidents on migration routes around the world, indicates that in this way last year's figures (2,411) have already been exceeded, confirming the 2023 as the deadliest year for migration on Mediterranean routes since 2018, but without reaching the numbers of 2014 (5,136), the year with the most deaths.
Since the IOM launched the tracking system in 2014, an estimated 28,229 migrants have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean, the majority of them (more than 22,000) on the central route, which runs from the coast of Libya. and other Maghreb countries towards Italy and Malta mainly. The second deadliest route is the western one, destined mainly to Spain (3,464 dead migrants). In contrast, the eastern route, which usually ends on the Aegean coasts in Greece, has recorded the fewest victims since 2014 (2,329).
This year the most dangerous route has continued to be the central Mediterranean (2,188 dead or missing so far in 2023). In fact, this route was the scene in June of one of the worst shipwrecks on record in the waters of the Ionian Sea between Italy and Greece.
In that shipwreck that occurred about 80 kilometers from the Greek coast, the death of at least 82 occupants of a fishing boat carrying Pakistani, Syrian and other migrants from Central Asia and the Middle East was confirmed, although it is believed that the real number of deaths It was about 500, given the high number of missing people.
The dead and missing represent around 1% of the people who have tried to cross the Mediterranean to Europe (more than 266,000 so far this year), of which around 87,000 were intercepted by the authorities at sea, always according to the IOM data.
The Mediterranean route is by far the one that has left the most dead and missing since 2014: its 28,000 victims double, for example, the nearly 14,000 that have occurred on the remaining African routes, including those that cross the Sahara Desert, those of the Red Sea and those from the Atlantic towards the Canary Islands.
In South and Central America, where the most dangerous routes for land migration are considered to be, the number of deaths and missing persons since 2014 has risen to 8,543, including routes such as crossing the border between the US and Mexico, the Caribbean or the Darién Gap located on the isthmus between Panama and Colombia.
