Coastguard warns death toll will rise, as UN reveals six migrants die at sea each day

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Scores of people are feared to have drowned off the coast of Djibouti after two migrant boats capsized, amid new warnings from the UN that six people a day die on maritime smuggling routes to Europe and elsewhere.

According to the International Organization for Migration, the alarm was raised over the latest incident after two survivors were recovered. As the search for more survivors continued, the IOM said on Wednesday that 38 people had been confirmed dead.

Hopeful of finding work in rich Gulf countries, thousands of people from the Horn of Africa region set off every year from Djibouti to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait for the Arabian Peninsula.

“This tragic event demonstrates the risks that vulnerable migrants face as they innocently search for better lives,” said Lalini Veerassamy, the IOM chief of mission in Djibouti.

According to local witnesses, the missing people were loaded into two overfilled boats that capsized about 30 minutes after setting sail.

According to the IOM, an 18-year old survivor said he had boarded the first boat with 130 people on it. The teenager said he did not have any information about the fate of the second boat.

The latest incident took place as the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, issued a new report detailing the alarming death toll in the Mediterranean last year.

According to the agency, six lives were lost on average every day as an estimated 2,275 people died or went missing crossing the Mediterranean in 2018, despite a major drop in the number of arrivals reaching European shores.

In total, 139,300 refugees and migrants arrived in Europe, the lowest number in five years.

“Saving lives at sea is not a choice, nor a matter of politics, but an age-old obligation,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees. “We can put an end to these tragedies by having the courage and vision to look beyond the next boat, and adopt a long-term approach based on regional cooperation, that places human life and dignity at its core.”

The report describes how shifts in policy by some European states have led to numerous incidents where large numbers of people were left stranded at sea for days on end, waiting for permission to dock. NGO boats and their crews faced growing restrictions on their search and rescue operations.

On routes from Libya to Europe, one person died at sea for every 14 who arrived in Europe – a sharp rise on 2017 levels. Thousands more were returned to Libya, where they faced appalling conditions inside detention centres.

The report also reveals significant changes in the routes being used by refugees and migrants.

Sharp rise in proportion of migrants dying in Mediterranean, says UN Read more

For the first time in recent years, Spain became the primary entry point to Europe as roughly 6,800 people arrived by land (through the enclaves in Ceuta and Melilla) and a further 58,600 people successfully crossed over the perilous western Mediterranean. As a result, the death toll for the western Mediterranean nearly quadrupled, from 202 in 2017 to 777 last year.

An estimated 23,400 refugees and migrants arrived in Italy in 2018, a fivefold decrease compared with the previous year. Greece received a similar number of sea arrivals, about 32,500 compared with 30,000 in 2017, but experienced a near threefold increase in the number of people arriving via its land border with Turkey.

Elsewhere in Europe, Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded an estimated 24,000 arrivals as refugees and migrants transited through the western Balkans. Cyprus received several boats carrying Syrian refugees from Lebanon, while small numbers crossed from France to the UK towards the end of the year.