Via The New York Times: Nearly as Many Migrants Died in the Mediterranean This Year as in All of 2015. Excerpt:
GENEVA — Deaths among migrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe are poised to overtake the fatalities last year despite a sharp fall in the number making the journey, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.
At least 3,740 people had died by the start of this week trying the perilous crossing, compared with 3,771 in the whole of 2015, William Spindler, a spokesman for the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, told journalists in Geneva. An overwhelming majority, nearly nine in 10, died on the trip from Libya to Italy.
“This is by far the worst we have ever seen,” Mr. Spindler said.
So far this year, 327,800 people have crossed the Mediterranean, about one-half the number who crossed last year. On that basis, the death rate could be said to have doubled, he added.
The sharp rise in fatalities resulted at least in part from changing tactics used by smugglers, who have increasingly resorted to mass embarkations loading thousands of people at a time and using less seaworthy boats, including inflatable rubber rafts that do not last the crossing.
“Smuggling has become big business: It’s being done on an almost industrial scale,” Mr. Spindler told reporters. The mass embarkation tactic appeared intended to raise profits and reduce the risk of detection, he said.
Around 153,450 migrants have arrived in Italy this year from North Africa, and at least 3,195 people have died on this route, according to the International Organization for Migration, accounting for close to 90 percent of all the migrant deaths in Mediterranean recorded this year.
