Last year was the deadliest for migrants in the Middle East and North Africa since 2017, the United Nations' migration agency reported Tuesday. About 3,800 people died on sea and land migration routes within and from the Middle East-North Africa region, according to data released by the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project. The number is 11% higher compared to 2021 and the highest since 2017, when the project documented the deaths of 4,255 people in the region. The 2022 data show that the region, often referred to by the acronym MENA, accounted for more than half of the 6,877 deaths the project documented worldwide last year. On the region’s land routes, the Missing Migrants Project documented more than 1,025 deaths, while the rest occurred on sea routes to Europe, particularly in the central Mediterranean Sea.

Source: The North Africa Journal June 14, 2023 12:44 UTC