GENEVA: More than 3,000 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean so far this year, more than double the previous peak in 2011, the International Organisation for Migration said on Monday.

Europe is by far the most dangerous destination for “irregular” migrants, the organisation found in a report, with 3,072, or 75 per cent, of the 4,077 registered migrant deaths worldwide since January happening in the Mediterranean.

In the 216-page report titled “Fatal Journeys: migrant fatalities across land and sea”, IOM said more than 40,000 people had perished since 2000 while migrating — 22,000 of them while trying to reach Europe.

“It’s time to do more than count the number of victims,” IOM chief William Lacy Swing said in a statement.

“It’s time to engage the world to stop this violence against desperate migrants,” added Swing, whose agency is not part of the United Nations but works closely with the world body.

Published in Dawn, September 30th , 2014