The United Nations (UN) noted that 1,600 immigrants lost their lives only in this year in transition from the Mediterranean to Europe, noting that the Mediterranean has become "more deadly" since the founding of Aylan Kurdi's body in Bodrum three years ago.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has issued a new 32-page report under the title "Desperate Journeys".

There has been a sharp rise in the number people dying while trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe, the UN refugee agency has said in its latest report.

While fewer people are making the journey to Europe, the rate of deaths has risen sharply. In the central Mediterranean, one in 18 people has died or gone missing so far this year, compared to one death for every 42 people who crossed in the same period in 2017.

More than 78 deaths of refugees and migrants have meanwhile been recorded so far along land routes in Europe or at Europe’s borders, compared to 45 in the same period last year.  

Pascale Moreau, director of UNHCR’s Europe Bureau, said: "This report once again confirms the Mediterranean as one of the world’s deadliest sea crossings. With the number of people arriving on European shores falling, this is no longer a test of whether Europe can manage the numbers, but whether Europe can muster the humanity to save lives."

The report also shared information that from the beginning of 2018, 78 people were trying to reach Europe by highways, have lost their lives.

The organization is also calling on Europe to increase access to safe and legal pathways for refugees, including by increasing resettlement places and removing obstacles to family reunification – helping to provide alternatives to potentially deadly journeys.  

NGOs including Medicines Sans Frontiers and migrant search-and-rescue organization SOS Mediterranean recently blamed the Italian government, among other European authorities, for the “skyrocketing” death toll.

ILKHA