MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Almost 40,000 migrants have died worldwide since 2000, the data, released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Monday suggests.
"Globally IOM estimates that at least 4,077 migrants died in 2014, and at least 40,000 since the year 2014," the report reads.
"Our message is blunt: migrants are dying who need not," IOM Director General William Lacy Swing said, as quoted in a message on the organization's website.
The study "Fatal Journeys: Tracking Lives Lost during Migration," conducted under IOM's Missing Migrant Project, was prompted by the tragedy of October 2013, when about 400 migrants died in two shipwrecks, trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa.
According to the study, Europe is currently the most dangerous destination for "irregular" migration, as almost 22,000 migrants died trying to reach the region since 2000, most of them – while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. During the same period, another 6,000 migrant deaths happened along the US-Mexico border, and 3,000 more – in the African Sahara desert and the waters of the Indian Ocean.
The report suggests, that the real number of migrant fatalities is likely to be much higher, as "many deaths occur in remote regions of the world and are never recorded."
Among the report's key recommendations is the establishment of an independent international monitoring body, promoting the collection and analysis of data on migrants deaths globally.
Apart from counting the migrant fatalities, the Missing Migrants Project is aimed at promoting the use of social media to address the problem of illegal migration, including warning the prospective migrants about the dangers they may encounter on their routes.
