The UN migration agency has said that thousands of people died or went missing along global migration routes in 2025. It said that deaths in the popular Mediterranean Sea rose sharply this year despite lower numbers reported in 2025.
The UN agency’s report said that at least 7,667 people went missing or died on migration routes worldwide last year.
The UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has called on member nations for improved funding to provide more safe routes for migrants around the world.
The total, according to the report, was lower than in 2024, when 9,200 people lost their lives, the highest number of fatalities recorded since IOM data collection began in 2014.
However, the agency said that the actual number in 2025 could be much higher, since many people travelled through unknown and risky routes.
Meanwhile, it said that the number of deaths reported in the first two months of 2026 has significantly surged, with 606 deaths.
According to the IOM, nearly 2,200 people were confirmed dead or missing in the Mediterranean in 2025, while around 1,200 died or disappeared on the route from West Africa to the Canary Islands.
In both cases, the figures are lower than those in the previous year. The report further said that the highest number of deaths were recorded in Asia, with routes between the Horn of Africa and Yemen and to the Gulf nations, which reported nearly 4,000 deaths alone in 2025.
The IOM said there was a need to “urgently scale up coordinated search-and-rescue operations to prevent further loss of life and strengthen international cooperation to dismantle criminal networks.”
IOM Director General Amy Pope said, “The continued loss of life on migration routes is a global failure we cannot accept as normal.”
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