Migrant Deaths on the Mediterranean Since 2014 Exceed 20,000

From IOM: “A tragic shipwreck off the coast of Libya last month and more than a dozen other recent fatalities elsewhere have pushed the death toll in the Mediterranean Sea to 20,014 since 2014, according to IOM’s Missing Migrants Project. ‘The disappearance and presumed drowning of at least 91 people reported missing aboard a dingy north of Garabulli, Libya, on February 9 is the latest in a series of so-called “ghost boats” that have vanished en-route to Europe, claiming hundreds of lives,’ said Frank Laczko, Director of IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre. … Although the annual number of deaths has decreased every year since 2016 when more than 5,000 lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean, the proportion of deaths compared to attempted crossings rose in both the Central and Western Mediterranean in 2019 compared to previous years – a continuation of the increasing risk of death seen since 2017….”