20,000 deaths while tackling Mediterranean since 2014: UN

GENEVA: The UN migration agency said on Friday that a shipwreck off Libya and other recent maritime incidents have raised its estimated death toll among migrants who tried to cross the Mediterranean past the “grim milestone” of 20,000 deaths since 2014.

Paul Dillon, spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), pointed to incidents including the presumed drowning of 91 people who went missing from a dinghy that left Garabulli, Libya, on Feb.9, and the disappearance of a ship that set off from Algeria on Feb.14.

IOM noted on Friday that the yearly death toll has declined each year since 2016, when over 5,000 people lost their lives while attempting Mediterranean crossings.

The agency reiterated its call for “expanded safe, legal pathways for migrants and refugees” to help reduce the incentive of migrants to choose irregular channels, and “to help prevent the unnecessary and avoidable loss of lives.”

IOM also lamented cases of “ghost boats” or “invisible shipwrecks” that are often reported by nongovernmental organisations that receive calls from migrants facing trouble at sea, or from relatives searching for lost loved ones.

“Two-thirds of the fatalities we have recorded are people lost at sea without a trace,” said Frank Laczko, director of IOM’S Global Migration Data Analysis Centre. “The fact that we have reached this grim new milestone reinforces IOM’S position that there is an urgent need for increased, comprehensive ( search and rescue) capacity in the Mediterranean,” he added.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s coastguard rescued around 120 migrants trying to reach a Greek island on three dinghies early on Friday after they said their passage was blocked by Greek coastguard vessels.

Drifting in the darkness in the Aegean Sea and packed into one of the dinghies stranded without a functioning motor, migrants shouted as coastguard vessels approached them off the coast of western Turkey’s Izmir province.

The migrants, including people from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and various African countries, held up small children to be rescued first by the crew of the coastguard vessel.