Sea crossings fuel rise in deaths
BERLIN — Refugee deaths rose sharply last year, particularly in the Mediterranean, as smugglers made ever-riskier attempts to ferry asylumseekers on increasingly unseaworthy vessels, according to United Nations statistics released Friday.
The International Organization for Migration documented 7,763 deaths in 2016 worldwide, 27 percent more than the 6,107 recorded in 2015.
Two-thirds of the deaths took place in the Mediterranean Sea, where 5,098 people lost their lives trying to make the trip from North Africa, Turkey and the Middle East to Europe, according to information collected by the group’s Data Analysis Center in Berlin.
The number of Mediterranean casualties last year was 35 percent higher than in 2015, despite more organized rescue efforts and fewer people trying to make the perilous journey. Most of the 2016 deaths were in the Central Mediterranean, where 4,581 refugees died attempting the longer trip from North Africa to Italy.
The migration organization cautioned that better monitoring and reporting might account for part of the increase in deaths in the Mediterranean. The area has become a greater focus as more asylum seekers streamed into Europe in recent years.
But evidence shows that along with several large shipwrecks, there also were more small fatal incidents as smugglers pursued strategies such as launching multiple boats simultaneously — making rescue operations more difficult — and taking to rough seas during the winter, the organization said.
“There are huge sums of money to be made for each of those boats that cross the Mediterranean, so the more people you can cram into a boat, the more money you make,” said Frank Laczko, director of the International Organization for Migration’s analysis center.