7,667 MIGRANTS DIED ON DANGEROUS ROUTES IN 2025 - AND THE REAL FIGURE IS WORSE, UN WARNS - in-cyprus 27/2
Nearly 8,000 migrants died or went missing on dangerous routes last year, and the true toll is likely far higher as funding cuts hamper the monitoring of migration deaths, the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warned on Thursday.
The IOM recorded 7,667 deaths on migration routes in 2025, down from nearly 9,200 in 2024, but said the drop partly reflects shrinking access to information and funding shortfalls that have complicated efforts to track fatalities — not necessarily fewer deaths.
As Europe, the United States and other regions step up enforcement and pour money into deterrence, legal migration pathways are narrowing, pushing more people into the hands of smugglers, the agency said.
“The continued loss of life on migration routes is a global failure that we cannot accept as normal,” IOM Director Amy Pope said in a statement. “These deaths are not inevitable. When safe pathways are inaccessible, people are pushed into dangerous journeys and into the hands of smugglers. We must now expand safe and regular pathways and ensure that those in need can access protection, regardless of their status.”
Sea routes remained among the deadliest, with at least 2,108 people dead or missing in the Mediterranean last year and 1,047 on the Atlantic route to Spain’s Canary Islands.
In Asia, approximately 3,000 migrant deaths were recorded, more than half of them Afghan nationals. A further 922 people died crossing from the Horn of Africa to Gulf states — a sharp rise on the previous year — with nearly all of them Ethiopian, many lost in three major shipwrecks.
The IOM is among several humanitarian organisations hit by significant cuts to US aid funding, and has been forced to reduce or suspend programmes in ways it says will seriously affect migrants.
The trend has continued into 2026, with 606 migrant deaths recorded in the Mediterranean to 24 February, the agency added.
