The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reported a record 321 migrants dead and missing in the Caribbean in 2022, the highest number since it launched its Missing Migrants Project.
In a statement, the organization has warned that the number shows a «drastic increase» compared to data from 2021, when 180 dead and missing were recorded in the same area.
In total, 66 were women, 64 men and 28 adolescents of both sexes. In addition, 163 deceased could not be identified. «More than 51 percent of the people who lost their lives on Caribbean migration routes last year could not be identified,» said Patrice Quesada, IOM Regional Coordinator for the Caribbean. «This means that hundreds of families have no information about the whereabouts of their loved ones,» she said.
Most of the migrants who died or disappeared were from Haiti (80), Cuba (69), Dominican Republic (56) and Venezuela (25). Quesada explained that the main cause of death is drowning caused by bad weather conditions, which make navigation difficult. Added to this is the use of precarious boats that are not suitable for navigation on the high seas.
A significant number of the recorded incidents occurred on routes leading to the United States, especially on routes from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico, from Haiti to the Dominican Republic and from Venezuela to several Caribbean islands.
Julio Cesar, a Cuban migrant and sole survivor of the six people who were recently shipwrecked, has expressed that it was a «terrible» experience and maintained that these are «dangerous» routes. «The boat turned over five times, we lost our scarce provisions and the panic and cold overwhelmed them,» he said.
«The fear soaks your bones, the clothes end up completely soaked, the vertigo of the waves (…). I saw them from above, when I was on the crest of the wave, until the water swallowed them up,» he has continued.
The IOM has thus called on the governments of the Caribbean countries and all these migratory routes to «optimize regional cooperation and ensure the protection and safety of migrants regardless of their migratory status and at all stages of their journeys».
«The prevention of migrant deaths must begin through regular migration channels, defending the right of families to remain united and responding to the needs of migrants in vulnerable situations,» the text states.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
