Category: Migrants and Refugees

Last year was the deadliest on record, with 8,541 migrant victims. Nearly 60 per cent of deaths were linked to drowning. 

So far in 2024, the trends are just as alarming. Along the Mediterranean sea route alone – while arrivals this year are significantly lower (16,818) compared to the same period in 2023 (26,984) – the number of deaths is nearly as high as before, with 956 registered since 1 January.   

Unidentified, under-reported 

IOM noted that that the number of unidentified deaths remains high – more than two in three migrants – leaving families and communities to grapple with the lack of clarity about what happened to a friend or relative. To date, the UN agency’s Missing Migrant Project data shows that the remains of 26,666 people who died while migrating have not been recovered.

“Despite the many lives lost whose identities remain unknown, we know that almost 5,500 females have perished on migration routes during the last 10 years and the number of identified children is nearly 3,500,” said Ugochi Daniels, IOM Deputy Director General for Operations, commenting on the recent findings. However, the report suggests, the true number of deaths of women and children is likely far higher: there are more than 37,000 dead for whom no information on sex or age is available.   

Call for safe pathways 

More than one in three deceased migrants whose origin could be identified come from countries in conflict or with large refugee populations, the study finds. That highlights dangers faced by those attempting to flee conflict zones without safe pathways, the agency underscored. The deadliest route is the Central Mediterranean, where at least 23,092 people have died since 2014.

“The toll on vulnerable populations and their families urges us to turn the attention on the data into concrete action,” Ms. Daniels said, advocating for more detailed information collection that would facilitate creating safer migration routes for people fleeing conflict and distress in their home countries.

IOM has adopted a new Strategic Plan 2024-2028 that aims to save lives and protect people on the move as its first objective. To do so, the UN migration agency is calling on countries and other partners to work jointly to end migrant deaths and address the impacts of the tens of thousands of lives lost on migratory routes worldwide.  

Martin Griffiths was speaking at a review of humanitarian efforts to help people uprooted by conflict, climate change or other emergencies.

He echoed concerns that help for the world’s internally displaced isn’t being delivered quickly enough by the United Nations and its partners, as escalating conflicts, large-scale disasters, water scarcity and food insecurity continue to fuel the number of people uprooted within their own countries.

“We need to use the access to communities in partnership with development partners and those who could think of solutions including mediation (and) the political community in that country, to see what those people can tell us of what they want”, said the Humanitarian Affairs chief.

“We should do it together because they will not distinguish between us.”

Humanitarians insist that reforms are needed to help internally displaced people because they suffer the worst health outcomes and the highest mortality rate of any other population group in emergencies.

Falling short

But these changes are not happening quickly enough, according to a new report from UN agency heads and partners known collectively as the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, or IASC.

It underlined that displaced people are the responsibility of affected countries, but when governments are “unable or unwilling” to offer solutions, humanitarians should step in. 

But today’s efforts are “too slow to respond” to vulnerable people’s needs and too slow to help them rebuild their lives, the IASC warned, as it highlighted estimates that climate change could push more than 200 million people into displacement by 2050.

Too often the humanitarian system at large overlooks the specific needs of IDPs and “focused more on internal processes than meaningfully engaging the people it aims to help”, said the executive summary of the report, published last week.

Displacement ‘growing dramatically’

In an update to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, the UN Special Adviser on Solutions to Internal Displacement said new data was due in May covering last year but the problem is growing in complexity, driven largely by climate change and violence.

Displacement due to disaster is growing too and represented a 40 per cent increase in 2022 compared with the previous ten year average, said Robert Piper.

“Almost every country in the world is affected by displacement. Japan is still managing displaced persons from Fukushima. The US from the fires in Hawaii.” 

Nigeria’s 4.5 million displaced represent two per cent of Nigeria’s population, Somalia’s 3.9 million IDPs more than 20 per cent, while Syria’s nearly seven million represent more than thirty per cent, he added.

“Despite these numbers, IDPs remain under-represented in these corridors. The issue has no clear home at the UN. Institutionally or inter-governmentally. No treaty, no compact, no Forum”, he noted. 

With his Office due to close at the end of next year, Mr. Piper said among the lessons learned from a group of 15 countries suffering protracted displacement was that “how we begin affects profoundly what happens next”. 

The long-term displaced want livelihoods but often camps become magnets for services which “generate dependency”.

‘Pivot fast to solutions’

He said early humanitarian response needs to pivot fast to solutions. 

But solutions are genuinely difficult for many governments to execute due to political and social sensitivities. True political leadership can make for faster progress, he said, at a local and national level.

He said the UN development system suffers from a “chronic timing challenge” and new ways need to be found to urgently fast track investments much earlier in a crisis.

He said the focus of his team in the time remaining would be to move their pilot programme forward and place 10 million IDPs on a “solutions pathway”.

“We will raise the profile of internally displaced persons across the UN system and in its governing bodies”, he said.

“And I hope we will advance the dialogue on creating a regular forum for this issue in our inter-Governmental architecture, one day.”

Nearly 8,600 people on the move died in 2023, a 20 per cent increase from 2022, according to the UN agency’s Missing Migrants Project online platform.

It details the global movement of people risking their lives to escape conflict, economic crisis and natural disasters, including drought and flooding linked to climate change. IOM says the findings clearly show that there are far too few legal pathways for migrants.

Hundreds of thousands of people are continuing to embark on dangerous and illegal cross-border journeys every year

Death at sea

Data from IOM indicated that drowning accounted for slightly more than half of last year’s deaths, nine per cent involved vehicle accidents and seven per cent of fatalities were victims of violence.

The Mediterranean Sea crossing continues to be the deadliest route for migrants on record, with at least 3,129 deaths and disappearances in 2023. This is the highest death toll recorded since 2017.

Unprecedented numbers of migrant deaths were recorded across Africa (1,866) and Asia (2,138) last year.

“In Africa, most of these deaths occurred in the Sahara Desert and the sea route to the Canary Islands,” IOM said. “In Asia, hundreds of deaths of Afghan and Rohingya refugees fleeing their countries of origin were recorded last year.”

Support for Syrian refugee dwindles, as needs grow

The world is failing Syrian refugees and the communities that are hosting them as the brutal war inside their homeland enters its 14th year, the latest UN-led regional response plan warns.

At what is a volatile moment for the entire region, with conflict raging in Gaza, the needs of refugees are growing while funding to support them and their hosts is dwindling.

According to the 2024 regional strategic overview (3RP), the main regional platform to support Syrian refugees and their host communities, the urgent needs of more than 6.1 million Syrian refugees and 6.8 million host community members are increasingly going unmet.

In 2024, 3RP partners estimate that $4.9 billion is required to respond to the priority needs of vulnerable populations and institutions affected by the Syria crisis in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Türkiye.

Headwinds multiply

But, the mounting challenges of inflation, higher food and fuel prices, currency devaluation and high unemployment – especially among women and youth – are being aggravated by the ripple effects of Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and climate change.

The 3RP has gone from being over 60 per cent funded on average, between 2015 and 2018, to just 40 per cent from 2020 to 2022. Last year, only 30 per cent of the required funds were received.

This means people are being left out than are being supported, the plan warns.

“Thirteen years on, and with no political solution on the horizon, refugees from Syria continue to be in real need of international protection and asylum,” stressed Ayman Gharaibeh, UNHCR Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“With funding decreasing, millions of refugees and their hosts are plunging further into poverty and are exposed to multiple protection risks”, he added.

“The international community needs to stay the course by providing the required level of support and solutions to the most vulnerable. We must avert a situation where despair settles in.”

In Jordan, reduced funding jeopardizes services for the most vulnerable. Türkiye is grappling with increased vulnerabilities due to last year’s earthquakes and financial pressures.

Underfunding would leave 450,000 refugee children and youth without education. Health gaps, especially in immunization, pose threats to refugees, while 346,000 vulnerable households would lose food assistance.

Rights experts deplore UK appeal court decision on Shamima Begum

Independent UN rights experts have expressed deep concern following the ruling late last month of the United Kingdom’s Court of Appeal in the case of Shamima Begum, who travelled to Syria aged 15 to marry an ISIL fighter.

Ms. Begum “remains stripped of her citizenship, vulnerable and denied assistance and protection as a possible victim of trafficking”, the Human Rights Council-appointed UN experts said.

The experts called on the UK Government to take urgent action to provide Ms. Begum with assistance and protection, including repatriation, and to review and reconsider the decision to revoke her citizenship by the then Home Secretary.

The Court of Appeal rejected all the arguments presented by Ms. Begum’s lawyers on the ground that national security concerns voiced by the government took precedence over considerations of possible trafficking. She remains a prisoner in a camp in northern Syria, is now stateless and argues that she was brainwashed by the terrorist group.

Protection obligations

“Protections owed to victims of trafficking and those at risk of trafficking, especially children, must be respected to be meaningful,” the UN experts said.

They noted the Special Immigration Appeals Commission had identified potential State failures and possible violations of the State’s corollary duty to protect and prevent serious human rights violations prior to Ms. Begum’s departure from the UK as a vulnerable child, adding that “these circumstances were never properly investigated”.

“There is a credible suspicion that Ms Begum was recruited, transferred and then harboured for the purpose of sexual exploitation,” the experts said. “Human trafficking is an international crime, a form of modern slavery.”

They said that under international, European and UK law, any supposed question of “consent or voluntariness or use of force, deception or coercion is irrelevant where the victim of trafficking is a child”.

The experts, who do not receive a salary for their work and operate in a strictly independent capacity, said the court judgement renders Ms. Begum effectively stateless, which violates international law.

“Given the continuing serious risk of irreparable harm, we urge British authorities to take steps to ensure Ms Begum’s protection and to follow the lead of many other governments who are now repatriating women and children from northeast Syria,” the experts said.