ΙΟΜ: Mediterranean Migrant Arrivals Top 43,000 in 2017; Deaths: 1089
Press Release
25/04/2017
IOM reports that 43,204 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2017 through 23 April, over 80 per cent arriving in Italy and the rest in Spain and Greece. This compares with 205,613 through the 19 April 2016.
IOM Greece reported Monday, the deaths and disappearances of 23 migrants or refugees over the weekend off the island of Lesvos in waters between Greece and Turkey. Hellenic authorities reported finding the remains of nine people while Turkish officials reported finding the remains of seven others. There were two survivors and indications of at least seven more people missing. One of the survivors was an expectant mother who was taken to a local hospital.
These deaths nearly tripled the number – from 14 to 37 – of men, women and children known to have died this year on the Eastern Mediterranean route. That figure is barely 10 per cent of the total recorded at this time last year, when 376 migrants or refugees were known to have died trying to enter Greece by sea from Turkey. Arrival numbers for the Greek islands also was much higher last year: 179,585 through 23 April, compared to just 4,843 this year.
These new deaths on the Mediterranean bring to 1,089, the total number of deaths on the Mediterranean where passage from North Africa to Europe continues to be the deadliest route migrants ply anywhere on Earth, according to data prepared by IOM’s Missing Migrants Project. Over the past week IOM has recorded the deaths of over 100 migrants trying to reach Europe through Spain or Italy after sailing from the North African coast.
Worldwide, the IOM Missing Migrants Project reports that there have been 1,616 fatalities through 23 April (see chart, below), with the Mediterranean region accounting for the largest proportion of deaths – about two thirds of the global total. Nonetheless this comes to 637 fewer fatalities than were reported up to the same point in 2016. However, these data do not account for full reporting from North Africa and the Horn of Africa, two migration corridors where data collection tends to be slower than in other regions.
