GENEVA, Feb. — Nearly 8,000 migrants died or went missing worldwide in 2025, marking one of the deadliest years on record for people attempting dangerous cross-border journeys, according to new data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The U.N. agency said at least 7,937 deaths and disappearances were recorded last year, while warning that the real toll is likely significantly higher because many cases go undocumented. The Mediterranean remained one of the world’s deadliest migration corridors. IOM said at least 2,108 people died or vanished on the sea crossing from North Africa to Europe in 2025. Another 1,047 people were reported dead or missing on the Atlantic route to Spain’s Canary Islands, underscoring the scale of the crisis on Europe-bound routes.
The trend has continued into 2026 at an alarming pace. As of February 24, IOM had recorded 606 migrant deaths or disappearances in the Mediterranean, which the agency described as the deadliest start to a year on that route since it began keeping records in 2014. In a separate statement after a new shipwreck off Greece, IOM said the first weeks of the year had already brought an “unprecedented” number of deaths in the region.
IOM Director General Amy Pope said the deaths were preventable and called for safer legal migration channels. “These deaths are not inevitable,” Pope said, arguing that when regular pathways are blocked, migrants are pushed toward smugglers and increasingly lethal journeys. She also said the continued loss of life on migration routes represents “a global failure.”
The agency warned that the crisis remains underreported. According to IOM, funding cuts, tighter restrictions on humanitarian rescue groups, and limited access to information in some coastal and border zones are making it harder to verify shipwrecks and track missing people. Reuters reported that in the past two weeks alone, the remains of 23 people had washed up on the coasts of southern Italy and Libya, while “hundreds more” were feared missing in cases that could not yet be fully confirmed.
Not every region saw a rise. IOM said the decline from the 8,938 deaths recorded in 2024 was partly linked to fewer crossings on some routes in the Americas. The agency recorded 409 deaths in 2025 at the U.S.-Mexico border and the Darién Gap, the lowest combined figure there since 2014. Even so, IOM stressed that the overall global toll remains intolerably high and called for stronger search-and-rescue efforts, better international coordination and expanded safe pathways for migrants.
