Mediterranean migrant arrivals reach 46,521 in 2019; Deaths reach 909
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IOM reports that 46,521migrants and refugees have entered Europe by sea through 28 August, roughly a 32 per cent decrease from the 68,029 arriving during the same period last year.
Arrivals this year to Greece and Spain are at 23,193 and 14,969, respectively (38,162 combined), accounting for 82 per cent of the regional total, with the balance arriving in much smaller numbers to Italy, Malta and Cyprus. Arrivals to Greece are running approximately 23 per cent ahead of 2018’s totals from this time. Arrivals to Spain are almost 50 per cent lower.
Deaths recorded on the three main Mediterranean Sea routes through almost eight months of 2019 are at 909 individuals – or about 58 per cent of the 1,562 deaths confirmed during the same period in 2018.
The 909 deaths include several deaths recorded in the Central Mediterranean route this past week.
On 27 August, a boat carrying more than a hundred migrants capsized off the coast of Al-Khums, Libya. The Libyan Coast Guard intercepted those on board and brought to shore 64 survivors, who reported that several people had drowned before the rescue took place. The remains of 10 people later were recovered from the sea, including those of a Moroccan family (mother, father, and two children aged 4 and 12) and a Somali man. At least 30 people remain missing, according to the testimonies of survivors.
Just a day later, the ship Mare Jonio, from the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans, rescued nearly 100 people from a deflating boat off the coast of Libya, including 22 children under the age of 10 and eight pregnant women. According to survivors interviewed by NGO staff, six people had drowned before they were rescued. Their bodies were not recovered.
In the Western Mediterranean, police authorities in Gibraltar recovered the remains of a young North African man off the coast of Punta Europa, in the Gibraltar Strait, on 28 August. He is believed to be one of the four people who went missing last week, when a boat carrying 11 migrants capsized off the coast of La Línea de la Concepción, Cádiz, Spain. Three others remain missing.
