America’s Migratory Routes Reach Grim Milestone: Over 500 Deaths So Far in 2019

Geneva, 16 August 2019 (IOM)*  –  In total, at least 514 people have lost their lives in the Americas in 2019, compared with 384 recorded through this point in 2018 – an increase of just over one-third.

Most recently, one man was found dead in a boat recovered by the Maltese Armed Forces. Three survivors were rescued in the operation; however, one other man is now in critical condition in hospital.

IOM Spain 

IOM Spain’s Ana Dodevska reported on Monday sea arrivals to Spain, through 11 August have reached 14,168 men, women and children, with July producing the largest number of new arrivals since January (see chart below).

IOM Greece 

IOM Greece’s Christine Nikolaidou reported on Wednesday (14/08) that over eight days (07-14/08), the Hellenic Coast Guard (HCG) confirmed at least eighteen incidents requiring search and rescue operation off the islands of Lesvos, Samos, Chios, Kos, Leros and the port of Alexandroupolis. The HCG rescued a total of 643 migrants and transferred them to those respective ports.

Those arrivals, plus another 1,499 at various islands and ports arriving during the days 8-12 August brings to 22,283 the total number of irregular migrants and refugees IOM has recorded arriving by sea to Greece this year (see chart below).

IOM’s Nikolaidou also shared new data on arrivals to Greece through the month of July.

In descending order, the top ten arrivals to Greece of irregular migrants via sea from Turkey are Afghanistan, Syria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Palestine, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Somalia, Congo, Cameroon and Ghana (see chart below).

Missing Migrants Project 

2019 is the sixth 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 32,629 individuals, including 1,675 in 2019, as of 14 August (see chart below).

Due to the challenges of collecting information about these people and the contexts of their deaths, the true number of lives lost during migration is likely much higher.

Missing Migrants Project records should only be viewed as indicative of the risks associated with migration, rather than representative of the true number of deaths across time or geography.

In Europe, the first known death has occurred of someone trying to reach the UK across the English Channel irregularly. On 9 August, an Iranian woman was tragically lost at sea. Nineteen others, including 4 children, were travelling on the same rubber boat and were rescued by authorities.

Since the start of the year, at least 251 people have died while attempting to cross the US-México border. MMP recorded 291 deaths on this border in the same period in 2018.

However, it is important to note that deaths along this border often are recorded retroactively, largely because remains may not be found until long after people die due to the vast and harsh terrain.

Since MMP’s last update, on 4 August, the remains of 15 people were recovered in inland Texas, and three were recovered after they drowned crossing the Río Bravo, which follows virtually the entire border between México and the US state of Texas.

So far, the identities of only six of these victims are known, including Yessica Carolina Castillo Buezo, a 35-year-old Honduran woman, who was found on a ranch northeast of the Falfurrias Border Patrol Checkpoint in Brooks County, Texas.

In California, the death of a young man was recorded after his remains were found on 20 July near El Centro, Imperial County, where he is believed to have died from hypothermia. The deaths of four more people were recorded in California since the last update. All were drowned while trying to cross the All-American Canal into Imperial County.

In Central America, at least two people died while migrating on 4 August: an unidentified man who fell from a train that was travelling through Veracruz México, and Braudilio Acosta Gutierrez, from Honduras, who was shot in the municipality of El Progreso, in Guatemala when he intervened during a robbery.  He was travelling with his 19-year-old son, who survived him.

Further south, on 8 August, a Venezuelan man died when he fell from the truck on which he was riding near Calarcá, east of Bogota, Colombia.

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.

The report Fatal Journey Volume 4, published 28 June, includes an overview of five years of Missing Migrants Project data (2014-2018) and an update on what is known about deaths during migration in 2019.

For latest arrivals and fatalities in the Mediterranean, click here. Learn more about the Missing Migrants Project.

*SOURCE: IOM. Go to ORIGINAL.