A decade of documenting more than 63,000 migrant deaths shows that fleeing is more lethal than ever

BERLIN (AP) — More than a decade ago, the death of 600 migrants and refugees in two Mediterranean shipwrecks near Italian shores shocked the world and prompted the U.N. migration agency to start recording the number of people who died or went missing as they fled conflict, persecution or poverty to other countries.

Governments around the world have repeatedly pledged to save migrants’ lives and fight smugglers while tightening borders. Yet 10 years on, a report by the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project published Tuesday shows the world is no safer for people on the move.

On the contrary, migrant deaths have soared.

Since tracking began in 2014, more than 63,000 have died or are missing and presumed dead, according to the Missing Migrants Project, with 2023 the deadliest year yet.

“The figures are quite alarming,” Jorge Galindo, a spokesperson at IOM’s Global Data Institute, told The Associated Press. “We see that 10 years on, people continue to lose their lives in search of a better one.”

The report says the deaths are “likely only a fraction of the actual number of lives lost worldwide” because of the difficulty in obtaining and verifying information. For example, on the Atlantic route from Africa’s west coast to Spain’s Canary Islands, entire boats have reportedly vanished in what are known as “invisible shipwrecks.” Similarly, countless deaths in the Sahara desert are believed to go unreported.

Even when deaths are recorded, more than two-thirds of the victims remain unidentified. That can be due to lack of information and resources, or simply because identifying dead migrants is not considered a priority.

Experts have called the growing number of unidentified migrants around the world a