Geneva – IOM, the UN Migration Agency reports that 16,847 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2018 through 11 April, with the vast majority arriving in Italy and the rest in Spain, Greece, and Cyprus. This compares with 33,602 arrivals across the region through the same period last year.

IOM Rome’s Flavio Di Giacomo said Thursday (12/04) that, according to Italy’s Ministry of Interior, 6,894 migrants arrived by sea to Italy this year as of 11 April: 74.53 per cent less than the same period last year (27,069).

IOM Athens’ Kelly Namia on Thursday (12/04) said that the total number of sea arrivals to Greek territory in 2018 through 11 April was 6,407 with the main landing points being the islands of Lesvos, Kos, Samos, Rhodes, Kalymnos, Megisti, Leros and Chios.

IOM Spain’s Ana Dodevska reported Thursday (12/04) that total arrivals by sea to Spain in 2018 have reached 3,499 men, women and children who have been rescued in Western Mediterranean waters through 11 April. This compares with 3,326 arriving last year through all of April.

Dodevska also reported that no land arrivals have been recorded so far in April, which compares with 417 land arrivals registered through March this year.

*2018 data last updated 11 April

Worldwide, IOM’s Missing Migrants Project (MMP) has recorded 933 deaths and disappearances during migration in 2018. In the Mediterranean alone, 557 migrants are estimated to have died this year. Most recently, 36 migrants died in the Western Mediterranean.

On Monday, 9 April, a boat capsized off the coast of Tangiers, Morocco. The bodies of six migrants, including four Moroccan nationals, and 10 injured survivors were found by Moroccan authorities. According to survivors’ testimonies collected by Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, there were 46 people on the boat when it capsized, therefore 30 remain missing.

In Europe, two migrants drowned when crossing the Kolpa river, which marks Slovenia's southern border with Croatia: on 9 April, the body of a 19-year-old Moroccan man was found in the municipality of Črnomelj, Slovenia, while the following day, authorities retrieved the body of an Algerian national who drowned when crossing the river through the same area. This year, four deaths have been recorded on this border.

There were three other additions to the Missing Migrants Project database since last Friday’s update. In Southeast Asia, MMP recorded the deaths of ten Rohingya in the Andaman Sea. Survivors had been stranded for weeks in their boat and were rescued by Indonesian fishermen on 6 April and brought to Aceh.

The five survivors, interviewed by IOM field staff, confirmed that the journey started with 15 people on board: three of them died of starvation and seven tried to swim to shore and are presumed dead. On 9 April, seven migrant workers from Myanmar died in a vehicle accident on Highway 12, outside Mae Sot, Thailand. On the Pakistan-Iran border, two young Pakistani men died when attempting to cross into Iran on 9 April.

Missing Migrants Project data are compiled by IOM staff but come from a variety of sources, some of which are unofficial. To learn more about how data on migrant deaths and disappearances are collected, click here.

For more information, please contact:
Joel Millman at IOM HQ, Tel: +41 79 103 8720, Email: jmillman@iom.int
Mircea Mocanu, IOM Romania, Tel:  +40212115657, Email: mmocanu@iom.int
Dimitrios Tsagalas, IOM Cyprus, Tel: + 22 77 22 70, E-mail: dtsagalas@iom.int
Flavio Di Giacomo, IOM Coordination Office for the Mediterranean, Italy, Tel: +39 347 089 8996, Email: fdigiacomo@iom.int
Hicham Hasnaoui, IOM Morocco, Tel: + 212 5 37 65 28 81, Email: hhasnaoui@iom.int
Kelly Namia, IOM Greece, Tel: +30 210 991 2174, Email: knamia@iom.int
Julia Black, IOM GMDAC, Germany, Tel: +49 30 278 778 27, Email: jblack@iom.int
Christine Petré, IOM Libya, Tel: +216 29 240 448, Email: chpetre@iom.int
Ana Dodevska, IOM Spain, Tel: +34 91 445 7116, Email: adodevska@iom.int
Myriam Chabbi, IOM Tunisia, Mobile: +216 28 78 78 05, Tel: +216 71 860 312 Ext. 109, Email: mchabbi@iom.int