Refugees, refugees, displaced persons: the number of victims drowning in the Mediterranean and in the Peloponnese is increasing all over the world and continues unabated

ROME – Let’s start with the story of the shipwreck of the day before yesterday in the waters of the Aegean. If the numbers relating to the people on board the fishing vessel Adriana were confirmed, it would be the second most serious shipwreck to have occurred in the Mediterranean (after that of April 2015: this was stated by the IOM spokesman, Flavio di Giacomo. They had been in telephone contact with the migrants aboard the Adriana, the fishing boat sunk with hundreds of migrants in the southern Peloponnese: fear and panic, but also fears for that boat that had approached and the terror of a safe shipwreck. the testimony collected by the activist Nawal Soufi who, in a post on Facebook, publishes the account of his contacts with the shipwrecked in the hours preceding the tragedy, including the communication of the last position. “The day before yesterday at dawn – it was the June 13 – the migrants on board a boat loaded with 750 people – the activist says – contacted me and told me of their difficult situation. After five days of travelling, the water had run out, the driver of the boat had abandoned them in open sea and there were also six dead bodies on board. They didn’t know exactly where they were, but thanks to the instant location of the Turaya phone, I was able to get their exact location and alerted the proper authorities.”

“We didn’t want to continue the journey anymore.” According to the story of the survivors, a nace approached the overloaded boat. Lines were tied to tow it and bottles of water were thrown to the castaways. There were moments of great excitement on board, partly because it was feared that the fishing boat could capsize while being towed and then because there were fights on board to grab the water that was being tossed. “There was no longer any desire to continue the journey to Italy, because we would not have known how to navigate by ourselves to get to Italian waters. The real driver of the boat was missing and they kept asking us what to do” added the activist-witness.

Drowned in the deepest waters of the Mediterranean. According to the first testimonies, therefore, the estimate of 700-750 people on board that fishing vessel would be correct, including at least 40 children, 104 would be the survivors. Healthy, at the moment, 79 confirmed victims, but many others are missing off the southern coast of Greece. According to the local coastguard, the ship sank in international waters, 87 km southwest of Pylos, off the Peloponnese coast. In one of the areas with the deepest waters of the Mediterranean. Rescuers rescued 104 passengers, including Egyptians, Syrians, Pakistanis, Afghans and Palestinians, and recovered 79 bodies. Ioannis Zafiropoulos – writes Al Jazeera – deputy mayor of the port city of Kalamata, where the survivors were taken, claims that there were more than 500 people on the boat. the Greek coast guards report over 400 people, while for the NGO Alarm Phone there were as many as 780. So far, 104 have already been rescued by the Hellenic Coast Guard, according to which the disaster occurred in international waters, not far from Pylos , in the Peloponnese.

The number of people fleeing war and hunger is increasing. The main annual report of theUNHCRThe Global Trends in Forced Displacement 2022, notes that at the end of last year, the number of people displaced by war, persecution, violence and human rights violations reached a record 108.4 million, up 19.1 million from the previous year. previous year, which was already the largest increase on record. And no slowdown has been seen in 2023, as the outbreak of conflict in Sudan has triggered new emergencies and further refugee flows, bringing the total number of displaced people to 110 million.

Displaced persons and refugees. Of these 110 million, theUNHCR classification

– 35.3 million as refugees, or as people forced to cross an international border to find safety

– 62.5 million as internally displaced persons, or forced to move within their countries of origin due to conflicts and violence.

The new estimates. The war in Ukraine was the leading cause of displacement in 2022. The number of refugees from Ukraine rose from 27,300 at the end of 2021 to 5.7 million at the end of 2022. With these numbers, Ukrainians are the largest influx of refugees recorded from the Second World War to today. The number of refugees from Afghanistan has also increased, because – explains theUNHCR – the new estimates also include people hosted in Iran, many of whom fled in the years before the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. The number of Venezuelan refugees present in Colombia and Peru is also growing.

Poorer countries welcome more. The figures reported in the dossier confirm that low- and middle-income countries are hosting the majority of displaced people. The world’s forty-six least developed countries, which together account for less than 1.3 percent of global gross domestic product, host more than 20 percent of all refugees globally. “People continue to be extraordinarily welcoming to refugees,” comments Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. However, he underlines that more international support and a more equitable sharing of responsibilities would be needed, especially in favor of those countries that host most of the world’s displaced persons despite having fewer economic resources.

Return home. As the total number of displaced people continues to grow, the Global Trends report shows that fleeing is not always the same as living in exile, because under certain circumstances, refugees can return home, voluntarily and safely. In 2022, more than 339,000 people returned to 38 countries and, although down on the previous year, there were significant voluntary returns to South Sudan, Syria, Cameroon and the Ivory Coast. Meanwhile, 5.7 million internally displaced people returned to their homes in 2022, mainly in Ethiopia, Myanmar, Syria, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the end of 2022, around 4.4 million people worldwide were stateless or of undetermined nationality: 2 percent more than at the end of 2021.

Migrate and die. Nearly 3,800 people, however, died on migratory routes in the vast so-called MENA region, or Middle East and North Africa, in the period between January and December 2022. It is the highest number since 2017, when 4,255 deaths were recorded according to data disseminated by the Missing Migrants Project of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The 3,789 disappearances in 2022 show an increase of 11 percent compared to the previous year. More than half of the 6,877 total deaths recorded worldwide occurred in the MENA region, according to data also released by the IOM.

On the land routes of North Africa. In the perilous crossing of the Sahara desert, 203 deaths occurred, while another 825 occurred on the overland routes of the Middle East. Libya, with 117 victims, recorded the highest number of deaths in North Africa, followed by Algeria with 54 deaths, Morocco with 13, Tunisia with 10 and Egypt with 9. But the scarcity of available data and the Difficulties in obtaining local information suggest that these numbers are probably on the downside.

On the maritime routes of the MENA area. A growing number of fatalities have occurred after boats full of migrants departed Lebanon for Greece and Italy. At least 174 people have died trying to migrate by sea from Lebanon, and these numbers make up almost half of the overall death toll on the Eastern Mediterranean route in 2022. 84 percent of those who die along the sea routes go unidentified .