Numbers are down by 14 percent over last year, but the Mediterranean route is still the deadliest migrant route in the world.
The Mediterranean remains the largest migrant cemetery in the world. Between January 1 and March 14, 2018, 463 people died or went missing on the three main sea routes according to the IOM's Missing Migrants Project. This is 14 percent down on the same period in 2017, when the dead or missing reached over 536.
Last year more than 3,000 migrants died during the sea crossing to Europe, accounting for nearly 60 percent of migrant deaths globally.
2016 deadliest year
The situation was even worse in 2016, when the number of deaths reached 4,150. Meanwhile, 11,636 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe by sea in the first 73 days of 2018. Of these, 48 percent arrived in Italy, 29 percent in Greece, 22 percent in Spain and 1 percent in Cyprus. In total 2,764 men, women and children were rescued on the western Mediterranean route to the Iberian peninsula between January 1 and March 14. The largest group by nationality came from Eritrea, followed by Tunisia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Libya and Ivory Coast.
"The statistics show a growing number of arrivals from the north African coast," said IOM's Spain spokesperson, Ana Dodevska. "In total 1,583 people who have arrived in Spain since the start of the year came from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya."
Italy record country for arrivals
Some 5,457 migrants and refugees arrived in Italy in the first nine and a half weeks of 2018, down more than 60 percent compared to the 15,843 arrivals in the same period in 2017. The arrivals in the period up to March 7, 2018, averaged 83 people a day, compared to 240 a day in 2017 and 140 in 2016. The drop is also reflected in the total number of arrivals via the three main sea routes, which stood at 143,544 in the same period in 2015 with an average of 2,142 a day; 134,905 in 2016 (1,983 a day); 20,051 in 2017 (299 a day) and 10,949 this year (163 a day).
EU operations save 285,000 lives
Over 285,000 migrants have been rescued in EU operations in the Mediterranean since February 2016. In 2017, a further 2,000 people were saved after being abandoned by smugglers in the desert. In addition, the AU-EU-UN working group established in November 2017 has helped more than 15,000 migrants to return to their countries of origin from Libya in conjunction with IOM. Further, over 1,300 refugees have been evacuated from Libya for resettlement to Europe under the emergency transit mechanism funded by the EU and the UN refugee agency UNHCR, as joint efforts to combat human trafficking continue.
The EC representation in Madrid confirms that the number of irregular arrivals dropped in 2017 and early 2018, "coinciding with action to save lives, tackle the deepest causes, protect Europe's external borders and intensify cooperation." "However, in the face of the general fragility of the situation member states are asked to make addition effort, particularly of a financial nature, to ensure an ongoing and effective response to the challenge of migration." (Members of the Libyan Red Crescent recover the bodies of migrants, that washed ashore, at the coast of Tajoura, east of Tripoli, Libya. Credit: EPA/STRINGER)