GENEVA: More than 2,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe this year, data showed on Tuesday, bearing testimony to the migrants’ increasingly desperate attempts to reach the continent.

“Unfortunately, we have now reached a milestone whereby over 2,000 migrants and refugees have died as of this past weekend,” International Organisation for Migration (IOM) spokesman Itayi Virri told reporters in Geneva.

The organisation said around 188,000 people had been rescued so far this year trying to cross the Mediterranean, and warned the 200,000-mark could be crossed by the end of the week.

IOM said the latest toll confirmed “this route as the deadliest for migrants in search of a better life”, and warned the situation was worsening.

Up until the end of July last year, more than 1,600 migrants had perished trying to make the journey, with 3,279 dying in the year.

Nearly all of the people crossing the Mediterranean so far this year, often in rickety boats and at the mercy of human traffickers, have landed either in Italy (97,000) or Greece (90,500), the IOM said.

Virri said the so-called central Mediterranean route had proved by far the deadliest, with just over 1,930 people dying trying to cross from Libya to Italy so far this year, while only about 60 had died trying to reach Greece.

The eastern route is shorter and IOM said that traffickers taking people to Italy tended to use more unseaworthy vessels, leading to the higher death toll.

Nineteen people lost their lives in the Channel of Sicily last week alone, with the bodies of 14 migrants brought to the Sicilian port of Messina on July 29. They had been travelling with 456 others who were rescued.

And on Monday, 550 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean over the weekend arrived in Sicily aboard a ship operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which also carried the bodies of five people who died at sea.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2015

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