Fatal Journeys Volume 3 Part 1 : Improving Data on Missing Migrants -

Over 7,400 Deaths on Migration Routes Across Africa in Last Five Years, IOM Figures Show

African migrants are perishing at a rate of about 25 persons per week – or about 1,300 annually – on the African continent, even before embarking on perilous sea journeys to Europe or the Arabian Peninsula. Since 2014 over 7,400 men, women and children have died in transit across Africa, new records published today by IOM’s Missing Migrants Project (MMP) show.

These recently added records bring the total number of deaths documented on the African continent to 573 in 2019, and 7,401 in the last five years. Moreover, these figures fail to capture the true scale of the tragedy, as they represent only fatalities which have been reported.

The new records are based on hundreds of eyewitness accounts collected from migrants through surveys by the Mixed Migration Centre’s Monitoring Mechanism Initiative (4Mi: ▻http://www.mixedmigration.org/4mi). The interviews with migrants were conducted by 4Mi between December 2018 and April 2019 in West, North and East Africa and were analysed by the Missing Migrants Project team before being added to its MMP database.

However, 4Mi interviews covered only a small sample of the total number of migrants on the move in Africa – meaning that hundreds of additional deaths likely remain unreported and, of course, uncounted.

Nonetheless, due to the absence of other sources of information, surveys such as those conducted by 4Mi reveal important information about migrants’ experiences, including the risks to life that people face during their journeys.

Records show that thousands of people lose their lives as they journey through North Africa, where 4,400 deaths have been reported since 2014. However, deaths in this region are not well documented, and the true number of lives lost during migration remains unknown.

Migration routes in Sub-Saharan Africa also are dangerous, as demonstrated by the 1,830 deaths recorded by the project since 2014. Many of these deaths were recorded in West Africa, where 240 people were reported dead in 2019.

Overland routes in the Horn of Africa and the perilous sea passage across the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea have claimed the lives of at least 1,171 people since 2014. Migrants reported having witnessed others die from starvation, dehydration, exposure to harsh weather conditions, vehicle accidents and violence at the hands of smugglers.

Unfortunately, survey data contain no information on the identities of those whom survey participants witnessed die. Beyond initiatives like 4Mi, little efforts have been made to collect more information on people who die on migration journeys in the African continent. Their remains may never be recovered, nor their deaths investigated. Their deaths may also not be known by their families, who are forced to navigate daily life with the pain of not knowing whether their loved one is alive or dead.

For the latest data on migrant deaths in Africa, visit the Missing Migrants Project website here (▻https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/africa). Anonymized Missing Migrants Project data can be downloaded from missingmigrants.iom.int/downloads.

For more information on the strengths and weaknesses of different data sources on deaths during migration, including survey data, please see Fatal Journeys Volume 3, Part 1: ►https://publications.iom.int/books/fatal-journeys-volume-3-part-1-improving-data-missing-migrants

▻https://reliefweb.int/report/world/over-7400-deaths-migration-routes-across-africa-last-five-years-iom-figur

#décès #morts #Afrique #désert #Sahara #IOM #OIM #statistiques #chiffres #mourir_dans_le_désert
ping @reka @karine4

Quelques références trouvées dans le livre Violent Borders de Reece Jones (excellent, par ailleurs), sur les #statistiques des décès de migrants (certains, voire beaucoup déjà signalés sur seenthis):

Humanitarian Crisis: Migrant Deaths at the U.S.-Mexico Border

This report is the result of a cooperative agreement entered into by Mexico’s National Commission of Human Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties to explore and use binational strategies to protect the human rights of immigrants in the border region. The report describes the unacceptable human tragedy that takes place daily in this region. The study was conducted and written by immigration and border policy advocate Maria Jimenez who resides in Houston, Texas.

▻https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/humanitarian-crisis-migrant-deaths-us-mexico-border

Fatal Journeys: Tracking Lives Lost during Migration

In October 2013, over 400 people lost their lives in two shipwrecks close to the Italian island of Lampedusa. While these two events were highly publicized, sadly they are not isolated incidents; the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that in 2013 and 2014 nearly 6,500 migrants lost their lives in border regions around the world. Because many deaths occur in remote areas and are never reported, counts of deaths fail to capture the full number of lives lost.

Despite recognition that actions must be taken to stop more unnecessary deaths, as yet there remains very little information on the scale of the problem. The vast majority of governments do not publish numbers of deaths, and counting lives lost is largely left to civil society and the media. Drawing upon data from a wide range of sources from different regions of the world, Fatal Journeys: Tracking Lives Lost during Migration investigates how border-related deaths are documented, who is documenting them, and what can be done to improve the evidence base to encourage informed accountability, policy and practice.

Regionally focused chapters present most recent statistics and address a number of key questions regarding how migrant border-related deaths are enumerated. Chapters address: migration routes through Central America to the United States, with a focus on the United States–Mexico border region; the southern European Union bordering the Mediterranean; routes from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa; routes taken by migrants emigrating from the Horn of Africa towards the Gulf or Southern Africa; and the waters surrounding Australia.

Numbers have the power to capture attention, and while counts of border-related deaths will always be estimates, they serve to make concrete something which has been left vague and ill-defined. In a way, through counting, deaths too often invisible are given existence. More complete data can not only serve to highlight the extent of what is taking place, but is also crucial in guiding effective policy response.

▻https://publications.iom.int/fr/books/fatal-journeys-tracking-lives-lost-during-migration
#fatal_journeys

Beyond Walls and Cages: Prisons, Borders, and Global Crisis

The crisis of borders and prisons can be seen starkly in statistics. In 2011 some 1,500 migrants died trying to enter Europe, and the United States deported nearly 400,000 and imprisoned some 2.3 million people―more than at any other time in history. International borders are increasingly militarized places embedded within domestic policing and imprisonment and entwined with expanding prison-industrial complexes. Beyond Walls and Cages offers scholarly and activist perspectives on these issues and explores how the international community can move toward a more humane future.Working at a range of geographic scales and locations, contributors examine concrete and ideological connections among prisons, migration policing and detention, border fortification, and militarization. They challenge the idea that prisons and borders create safety, security, and order, showing that they can be forms of coercive mobility that separate loved ones, disempower communities, and increase shared harms of poverty. Walls and cages can also fortify wealth and power inequalities, racism, and gender and sexual oppression.As governments increasingly rely on criminalization and violent measures of exclusion and containment, strategies for achieving change are essential. Beyond Walls and Cages develops abolitionist, no borders, and decolonial analyses and methods for social change, showing how seemingly disconnected forms of state violence are interconnected. Creating a more just and free world―whether in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands, the Morocco-Spain region, South Africa, Montana, or Philadelphia―requires that people who are most affected become central to building alternatives to global crosscurrents of criminalization and militarization.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Vp6xudyFL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

The Human Costs of Border Control (2007)

This article outlines the relationship between irregular immigration, increased border control, and the number of casualties at Europe’s maritime borders. The conclusion is that the number of fatalities is increasing as a result of increased border control. The author argues that States have a positive obligation under international law to address this issue, and formulates concrete proposals to monitor the number of border deaths.

▻http://thomasspijkerboer.eu/migrant-deaths-academic/the-human-costs-of-border-control-2007

#migrations #asile #réfugiés #chiffres #décès #morts #rapport #USA #Etats-Unis #frontières #Mexique