An average of six migrants died each day trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe last year, the UN says in a new report.
On the especially perilous route from Libya to Italy alone, one migrant died for every 14 who arrived alive in 2018. Across all migrant routes in the Mediterranean, one drowned for every 51 who reached Europe.
More than 116,647 arrived safely, continuing a trend downward since a high of over one million arrivals in 2015. The death rate then was much lower, at one out of every 269.
Over the past several years, tens of thousands fled violence, economic decline, or persecution through varying routes across Africa and the Middle East, with the goal of reaching Europe. They risked taking flimsy vessels and exploitation by those selling them passage.
This year, more than 200 migrant deaths have already been reported. Overall, the absolute number of migrants who died on the sea is down from the 3,139 who died in 2017 and to 2,275 in 2018.
The rise in the death rate may be linked to fewer rescue ships plying Mediterranean waters. NGOs like Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF) have docked their ships for good after European countries refused to accept rescued migrants.
“On several occasions, large numbers of often traumatised and sick people were kept at sea for days before permission to disembark was granted,” the UN said in its report, “sometimes only after other states had pledged to relocate the majority of those who had been rescued.”
The latest saga involving a rescue operation just ended in Italy, where an NGO ship with 47 migrants docked after two weeks stranded at sea—a standoff caused by Italy’s demand that other EU countries share the burden of accepting migrants.