Almost 8,000 people died or went missing last year on perilous illegal migration routes such as across the Mediterranean and Horn of Africa, but the real toll is likely far higher as cuts in funding have hit humanitarian access and tracking of deaths, a UN agency said.
“Legal pathways for migration” are shrinking, pushing more people into the hands of smugglers, the International Organisation for Migration said, as Europe, the US and other regions ramp up enforcement and invest heavily in deterrence.
Although deaths along illegal migration routes fell to 7,667 in 2025 from nearly 9,200 in 2024 as fewer people attempted dangerous illegal journeys — particularly across the Americas — the decline reflects shrinking access to information and funding shortfalls that have hampered efforts to track fatalities, the IOM said.
The Geneva-based organisation is among several groups hit by major US funding cuts, forcing it to scale back or close programmes in ways it says will “severely impact” illegal migrants.
Sea routes remained among the most lethal journeys, with at least 2,108 people dead or missing in the Mediterranean last year and 1,047 on the Atlantic route to Spain’s Canary Islands, the agency said.
Some 3,000 illegal migrant deaths were recorded in Asia, more than half of them Afghans, and 922 died crossing the Horn of Africa from Yemen to the Gulf States, in a sharp increase on the previous year.
Almost all of them were Ethiopians, many of whom died in three mass shipwrecks. The trend has continued into 2026, with illegal migrant deaths in the Mediterranean reaching 606 by February 24, the IOM added.
(Reporting by Amina Ismail; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
