GENEVA. The border between the United States and Mexico is the “most dangerous land migratory route in the world”, with 686 dead or missing in 2022, according to a report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) released yesterday.
“The figure represents almost half of the 1,457 deaths and disappearances of migrants” documented in the American continent in 2022, “the deadliest year” on record since the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project (MMP) began with its activities in 2014, according to the same source.
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“In 2022, 668 deaths of migrants were recorded (100 women, 454 men, 31 minors and 83 with undetermined sex and age)” on the border between the United States and Mexico, indicated the IOM annual regional summary.
Although there is an 8 percent decrease in deaths compared to 2021, the 2022 figure “is possibly higher than what the available information indicates,” since official data is missing, including from the border county in Texas and the agency Mexican search and rescue.
Since the beginning of this project in 2014, the IOM has recorded at least 4,664 deaths and disappearances on the US-Mexico border.
The leading causes of death on the vast border between the United States and Mexico were drowning (212), vehicle accidents or deaths linked to dangerous transportation (71), and extreme environmental conditions and lack of adequate shelter, food and water (156).
Almost half (307) of the deaths occurred in the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts. As a comparison, 212 deaths were recorded in the Sahara Desert in 2022, although the international organization warns that the data is probably incomplete.
In a landscape of vast deserts, canyons and hills full of cacti, migrants are victims of heat stroke in summer and hypothermia in winter, according to US border authorities. Some bodies are never found.
In North America, the countries with the highest number of deceased migrants were Mexico, Guatemala and Cuba, the IOM report states.
“These alarming figures are a stark reminder of the need for states to act decisively,” said Michele Klein Solomon, IOM regional director for North, Central America and the Caribbean.
According to the report, “one of the most worrying trends was the increase in deaths along migratory routes in the Caribbean, with 350 documented deaths in 2022 compared to 245 recorded in 2021.”
The most dangerous maritime routes in the region are those to the United States, the route from the Caribbean to Central America and the route from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico.
Migrants from the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba accounted for the highest number of deaths in the Caribbean area.
For its part, the inhospitable Darién jungle on the border between Panama and Colombia, another place through which migration routes pass to the United States, recorded 141 documented deaths of migrants in 2022. In 2021, 51 were recorded and in 2020 26 cases were recorded.
“These data represent a minimum estimate of the real figures, anecdotal reports continue to report that a large number of migrants die in the Darién National Park – there are even testimonies of people who have buried other deceased migrants in the jungle – and their remains have never been are recovered,” says the IOM.
This route is the subject of increasing controls by the Panamanian government, which on Friday announced that it will intensify the deportation of migrants who enter the country through that natural border that is 266 kilometers long and 575 thousand hectares in area.
“The remote and dangerous nature of this area and the presence of criminal gangs along the route means that this figure probably does not represent the real number of lives lost,” IOM spokesman Paul Dillon told reporters in Geneva yesterday.
Seaway
Although the deadliest land route for migrants on the planet is the one between the US and Mexico, the one with the most deaths and missing persons is maritime: the Central Mediterranean, where at least 1,417 people lost their lives in 2022, while in the western part of that sea the victims were 611.
The Italian island of Lampedusa (south), the closest to the African continent, yesterday received a record number of landings, with more than 2,800 migrants aboard some 70 boats since midnight, while the coast guard rescued 800 people in the Mediterranean.
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So far this year, 116,028 migrants have landed in Italy, more than double that of the same period last year (63,498), according to official figures from the Ministry of the Interior updated as of September 11.
2023-09-13 11:00:00
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