The Mediterranean, the most dangerous migration route – 27,000 souls “lost” in a damp graveyard

More than 400 migrants and refugees drowned in early 2023 while trying to cross the central Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe.

It has been called “Death Road”. It was called the “watery grave”. However, whatever one calls it, it does not cease to be the last voyage of tens of thousands of downtrodden people who are forced to cross it in search of a better tomorrow in Europe.

In the early hours of 14 June, unspeakable tragedy occurred off Pylos. 78 bodies were recovered from the sea, while the number of missing persons in the shipwreck is estimated at 568.

Perhaps the true number of victims of the shipwreck will never be known, which leaves open the possibility that we may be talking about “the largest tragedy in the Mediterranean.”

It is certainly the deadliest shipwreck of the past eight years, according to official IOM figures, as we count nearly four years since the tragedy of the deaths of 83 refugees. off Tunis.

Most passes since 2017

In the first five months of 2023, according to official data from Frontex, the number of border crossing attempts at the EU’s external borders reached 102,000, up 12% from last year.

The Central Mediterranean remains the main migration route into the EU. In the first five months of the year, the number of detections more than doubled (160%) compared to the same period in 2022. This is the highest number recorded since 2017.

So far this year, the Central Mediterranean remains the most active route to the EU, with more than 50,300 observations from January to May reported by national authorities. This route accounted for nearly half of all irregular entry into the EU in 2023.

400 dead by 2023

More than 400 migrants and refugees drowned in early 2023 while trying to cross the central Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe. This is the highest number of deaths in the past six years in a three-month period, according to the United Nations.

The International Organization for Migration recorded 441 migrant deaths between January and March “on what it calls the world’s most dangerous migration route”. Reuters. About half of these deaths are related to delays in government rescue efforts and, in one case, the lack of any rescue mission.

The warehouse of souls

More than 27,000 people have gone missing since 2014 while trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The central Mediterranean is the most dangerous known migration route in the world, with more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances recorded since 2014.

This is due to the length of the journey abroad, which can take days, as well as the practices of human traffickers and loopholes in search and rescue. Migrants often cross the central Mediterranean in unseaworthy and overloaded rubber boats. Multiple ships can also be launched simultaneously, greatly complicating search and rescue efforts.

The central Mediterranean is also the route where most of the disappearances occurred, although it is likely that many deaths remain unrecorded.

UN data from 2014 indicates that the bodies of more than 12,000 people may have been lost at sea along this route. There is also strong evidence that many wrecks are “unseen” – stricken boats disappear with no survivors – and thus are not recorded.

The worst shipwrecks in the Mediterranean

On April 18, 2015, the most well-known shipwreck occurred in the Mediterranean Sea when an overcrowded fishing trawler off Libya collided with a cargo ship trying to rescue it. Only 28 people survived. Medical examiners working to identify the dead in 2018 concluded that there were originally 1,100 on board.

On October 3, 2013, a ship carrying more than 500 people, many from Eritrea and Ethiopia, caught fire and capsized in front of an uninhabited island off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa. Local fishermen rushed to try to save lives. In the end, 155 survived and 368 people died.

Another wreck occurred just a week later on 11 October, seaward, south of Lampedusa. Known in Italy as the “Children’s Massacre”, the disaster claimed 60 children were among the more than 260 people who lost their lives. In 2017, the Italian weekly newspaper L’Espresso published recordings of the migrants’ desperate pleas for help and the rescue appears to be delayed by Italian and Maltese authorities.

1.6 million crossing attempts

According to data from the International Organization for Migration, since 2014 more than 1.6 million people have attempted to cross the Mediterranean, and nearly 20,000 have lost their lives on the journey.

2016 appears to have been the deadliest year yet, with more than 5,000 missing in the Mediterranean, with the majority of deaths recorded due to “drowning,” according to the figures.