More than 300 migrants disappeared or died in the Caribbean in 2022 —
At least 321 migrants were reported missing or dead in the Caribbean region in 2022. That’s the highest number recorded by the Missing Migrants Project, a United Nations initiative that has been tracking missing migrant incidents across the world since 2014.
The number of migrants lost at sea in 2022, including those confirmed dead, jumped from 180 in 2021, a 78% increase. Before last year, 2021 had been the year with the highest number recorded, according to data shared by the project and analyzed by the Miami Herald.
But those numbers are considered just minimum estimates that scratch the surface. The toll is likely much higher due to the dangerous nature of the maritime route conducted aboard rickety homemade boats in unpredictable weather conditions with no appropriate communication or navigation tools.
Almost a third, 103, of the migrants lost in the Caribbean in 2022 were from Cuba; 80 were from Haiti, 56 from the Dominican Republic and 25 from Venezuela; 7 are from other countries and 50 are still unidentified.
Since 2014, the U.N. project has identified at least 1,287 individuals who have gone missing in the Caribbean. Of those, only 356 have been confirmed dead. But Edwin Viales, a data and research assistant for the U.N. initiative under the International Organization for Migration, warns that the group normally presents the deaths and disappearances together, because it’s likely that those who disappeared have died.
“Particularly on routes like this one in the Caribbean, unfortunately, it is very, very, very common that a disappearance represents a death,“Viales said. “In this region, because of these conditions ... the marine route and the quality of the boats, it’s common that this happens.”
For 2022, 30% of reported disappearances have been confirmed as deaths.
Oftentimes, missing migrants who take to the sea and vanish go unreported in cases the project calls “ghost shipwrecks,” Viales said.
“It’s very common, unfortunately, that sometimes there’s no knowledge of where the migrants ended up — even big groups of 13 or 14 Cuban migrants where media or officials say there has been a disappearance of a boat at sea but then there’s nothing else known about the boat.”
In those cases, the group spends a couple of weeks investigating the most they can about the boat, who was on it and what route was taken. Then, they take the lowest number reported by either official sources or the media and record them as missing.
These ghost shipwrecks are especially common in the stretch between Cuba and Florida, Viales said, due to the poor conditions of the boats migrants often use, their unfamiliarity with the open sea and, often, their inability to swim.
The Caribbean region — which includes routes to the U.S. as well as from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico, from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, and from Venezuela to several Caribbean islands — is among the areas in the Americas where the numbers are likely most undercounted.
The lack of communication on maritime routes and the fears of people reporting missing family members are both contributing factors to the undercount, as is the high volume of migrants using the region, which in turn can result in more disappearances and deaths, he told the Herald.
WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?
Of the 1,287 individuals who have gone missing in the Caribbean, 380 were Haitian, 305 Cuban, 244 Dominican and 200 Venezuelan.
Fluctuations in the number of migrants reported each year can be explained by undercounts in the data as well as political factors in the country the migrant is coming from or en route to, Viales said.
In 2018, for example, when Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro held controversial presidential elections and government forces were violently cracking down on protests, more than half of the migrants reported missing in the Caribbean region were Venezuelan, according to the data.
In a recent statement, the International Organization for Migration called on Caribbean governments to protect migrants and reduce clandestine sea voyages by offering more avenues for legal migration. But for those already dead or lost at sea and their loved ones, it’s too little, too late.
“For families there is a great emotional burden,” Viales said, “not knowing and living in limbo.”
Ana Claudia Chacin: 305-376-3264, @AnaChacinc
Syra Ortiz Blanes: @syraob