Almost 40,000 Migrants Lost their Lives Crossing Borders/Seas Since 2000: IOM

Mediterranean Sea alone did cost over 22,000 migrants' lives since 2000

It sounds like almost 4 thousand faceless and nameless fellow human-beings had lost their lives unnecessarily every year since 2000 while trying to escape - persecution, killing, or poverty. They were somebody's sisters brothers daughters or sons and now they are just statistics. Unfortunately, thanks to the the rise of anti-migrant right wing parties all over the industrialized world, the death toll of migrants seems to rise even more in the coming years. Every country which tightens its borders and does everything to prevent immigrants from entering its "sovereign land", is a complicit to this human tragedy unfolding everyday from Australia, to the US; from South Africa to Italy; from Saudi-Arabia to Libya.  

Geneva - IOM today (29/9/2014) released “Fatal Journeys: Tracking Lives Lost During Migration,” the world’s most comprehensive tally to date of migrant fatalities across land and sea.

With a count surpassing 40,000 victims since 2000, IOM calls on all the world’s governments to address what it describes as “an epidemic of crime and victimization.”

“Our message is blunt: migrants are dying who need not,” said IOM Director General William Lacy Swing, “It is time to do more than count the number of victims. It is time to

Over 2,500 people have drowned or gone missing trying to reach Europe: UNHCR

Half of those arriving in Europe by boat are refugees from Syria and Eritrea.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres and Special Envoy Angelina Jolie visited the naval rescue headquarters in Malta yesterday, on a weekend in which new boat sinkings were being reported off Egypt and Libya claiming more innocent lives. Ms. Jolie and Mr. Guterres met three survivors of one of the tragedies, who had been rescued by a commercial vessel and brought to Malta by the Maltese authorities.

In the Maltese capital Valletta, Ms. Jolie also visited Syrian refugee families who survived a similar devastating boat tragedy last October. They included a couple from Damascus whose three small children perished during the crossing, and a doctor from Aleppo whose wife and three year-old daughter drowned. Half of those arriving in Europe by boat are

Human Traffickers deliberately sunk Migrants boat in Mediterranean sea, killing 500

Migrants being rescued off the Coast of Sicily

About 500 migrants are feared to have drowned after the boat carrying them from Egypt to Malta was apparently deliberately sunk by people-traffickers, an intergovernmental group has said. The news – based on the accounts of two Palestinian survivors – emerged on the same day up to 200 more people were feared dead when another boat heading to Europe capsized off Libya. The Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said there was no independent verification for what happened, mainly because only nine people are believed to have survived. The IOM's account comes from the two Palestinians, who were rescued by another boat and taken to Sicily. If the men's account is correct, by the IOM's tally about 2,900 migrants