UN: Land Routes are Twice as Deadly for Migrants as Mediterranean Voyages

The United Nations and partners say more migrants and refugees in Africa are heading northward toward the Mediterranean and Europe, crossing perilous routes in the Sahara where criminal gangs subject them to enslavement, organ removal, rape, kidnapping for ransom and other abuses.
A report released Friday by the UN refugee and migration agencies and the Mixed Migration Centre research group estimated that land routes in Africa are twice as deadly as the sea lanes across the Mediterranean.
The report said new conflict and instability in countries including Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan have been behind a rise in the number of journeys toward the Mediterranean. But Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Guinea were the top countries of origin of migrants.
It comes as many politicians as possible in Europe and beyond, in an important election year, have fanned or drawn support from anti-immigrant sentiment.
UNHCR special envoy Vincent Cochetel, citing accounts from some migrants and refugees who survived, said some smugglers dump sick people off pickup trucks ferrying them across the desert, or don’t go back to retrieve others who fall off.
“Everyone that has crossed the Sahara can tell you of people they know who died in the desert, whereas you interview people in Lampedusa: Not that many people will tell you about people they know who died at sea,” he said, alluding to an Italian island in the Mediterranean.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration reported earlier this year that more than 3,100 people died on the Mediterranean crossing last year.