Refugee deaths soaring in east Mediterranean: IOM
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned Friday about a sharp increase in the number of deaths related to refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea.
The organization said human traffickers are becoming more ruthless as they pack more and more people into smaller boats.
The IOM said 218 people had died in 2016 in the Aegean Sea on the Greek route as of January 28, marking a huge increase in the deaths of migrants in eastern Mediterranean region as fewer people had died in the first eight months of 2015 in the same region.
IOM spokesman Joel Millman said the sharp increase may be related to more reckless methods used by the traffickers as there is a “panic in the market that this is not going to last much longer.”
Many European governments, including the affluent ones such as Sweden and Finland, are introducing more restrictions to stem the unprecedented flow of refugees into their countries. More than a million people reached Europe last year in what triggered the continent’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Millman said traffickers have been using small and risky boats for transporting refugees, adding that even more people are reportedly being packed onto the boats than before. The IOM said another 26 refugees have died in the same period in the central Mediterranean region while trying to land in Italy, saying the surge may be related to new gangs that have been controlling the trafficking trade in North Africa.
The IOM said using smaller and more crowded boats have also become common on the route from Turkey to Greece, without elaborating on what the reasons could be.
The international body estimates that the total number of refugees killed in eastern Mediterranean region in 2015 was 805, while 2,892 people died in the central Mediterranean in the same period.
The sharp increase comes despite a drop in the number of arrivals in Europe with estimates showing that a total of 55,528 people landed in Italy and Greece between January 1 and January 28, the lowest since June 2015.
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