Migrant deaths hit record in 2024, with 10% violently killed, UN agency says

GENEVA (Reuters) -Last year was the deadliest on record for migrants, with nearly 9,000 people dying on perilous routes and one in 10 of those killed violently in incidents such as shootings, the U.N. migration agency said on Friday.

In 2024, at least 8,938 people died on migration routes, with Asian routes being the most deadly followed by the Mediterranean crossing and Africa, which includes the Sahara Desert.

"The increase in deaths across so many regions in the world shows why we need an international, holistic response that can prevent further tragic loss of life,"   International Organization for Migration (IOM) Deputy Director General for Operations Ugochi Daniels said in a statement.

At least 10% of the total migrant deaths were a result of violence -- a category that includes shootings, stabbings and beatings and also encompasses state-authorised killings of migrants, IOM said.

The countries with the highest number of such violent deaths occurred in Iran, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Mexico, an IOM spokesperson said, without saying who was responsible for the killings in each case.

Cases of migrants drowning after being forcibly pushed back by coastguards at sea are not captured in the data on violent deaths, the spokesperson added.

The IOM data goes back to 2014. Each year since 2021, the annual total of recorded migrant deaths has increased, with many thousands more thought to be unrecorded annually due to the lack of official records, IOM says.

The Geneva-based agency is one of several groups helping displaced people that have been hit by major aid cuts from the United States, forcing it to scale back or shutter programmes in moves it says will have a severe impact on migrants.

(Reporting by Emma FargeEditing by Ludwig Burger, William Maclean)