Migrant death rate rises as sea crossings fall

THE death rate for migrants attempting to reach Europe has risen even though the number trying to make the crossing has fallen, the UN Refugee Agency has warned.

More than 1,600 people have died or gone missing this year, the UNHCR said in a new report, with the death rate rising sharply, particularly in the Mediterranean.

One person died for every 18 people crossing to Europe over the central Mediterranean between January and July 2018. Over the same period in 2017, there was one death for every 42 migrants attempting the crossing.

The UN report blamed the increase in the death rate on fewer NGO boats being active on the Libyan coast.

In 2017, there were eight boats but now there are just two. Libya’s coastguard, which has two patrols, is now the main organisation intervening off its coast.

In practice this has meant that migrants travel in unsafe vessels for longer and further, with less likelihood of being detected and with fewer boats able to help, the UNHCR said.

“This report once again confirms the Mediterranean as one of the world’s deadliest sea crossings,” said Pascale Moreau, the UNHCR’S Europe bureau director.

“With the number of people arriving on European shores falling, this is no longer a test of whether Europe can manage the numbers, but whether Europe can muster the humanity to save lives,” she said.

There were 172,301 arrivals by sea to Italy, Greece, Spain and Cyprus in 2017 with 3,139 people dead or missing. At the height of the crisis in 2015, there were more than a million sea arrivals, with 3,771 deaths.

So far this year, 1,540 migrants and refugees are dead or missing out of a total of 68,199 sea arrivals, a similar death toll to previous years, despite fewer crossings.

There have been 10 incidents in which 50 or more people died in the Mediterranean, with seven since June.

Most had left Libya in an attempt to reach Europe.