In 2024, the Mediterranean claimed more than 2,200 migrant lives. Here’s why this year could be worse

More than 2,200 people died or went missing trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea last year, The United Nations says. With more European countries pushing for success far-right policies aimed at imprisoning migrantsexperts warn that even more lives could be lost in 2025 without real change.

As revelers rang in the new year around the world, grim news emerged from the Mediterranean: A small ship sailing from Libya sank near the Italian island of Lampedusa, leaving only seven survivors, including an eight-year-old whose mother was among more than 20 people reported missing.

It’s an all-too-common story in the region, where countless migrant boats try to cross the waters to Europe. Many never complete their journey. Almost 1,700 people were killed or disappeared in 2024 along the central Mediterranean route, which stretches from North Africa to Italy and Malta.

The deaths come after a year of increased crushing of civilian lifeboats in the Mediterranean, as well as attempts by Italy’s far-right government to let asylum seekers into Albania.

Michael Gordon, a research associate at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont., said NGOs that conduct search and rescue operations have become “easy scapegoats” for authorities frustrated by the large numbers of migrants.

“The result of this criminalization [is] … there are fewer resources at sea to help migrants in need. And as a result, people will continue to die,” he said in an interview with CBC News.

More than 31,000 migrants died or disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency.

The death toll in 2024 includes “hundreds of children, who make up one in five of all people migrating across the Mediterranean,” Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF regional director for Europe and Central Asia and special coordinator for the refugee and migrant response in Europe, said in statement last week. “Most are fleeing violent conflicts and poverty.”

‘Widespread criminalization’ of civilian lifeboats

Growing anti-immigration sentiment is making these crossings more dangerous, according to experts and rights groups.

In 2023, Italy banned search and rescue NGOs from carrying out more than one rescue per trip, meaning ships would have to ignore any other distress calls they received or risk huge fines and the detention of their vessels.

In November, the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch submitted a request criminal complaint against Italian authorities over the September shipwreck that killed 21 people, alleging that he alerted the Italian coast guard to a ship in distress but that a rescue boat was not dispatched for two days.

Italian authorities also routinely allocate remote ports for NGO rescue ships. Last month, SOS Méditerranée, an international rescue organization, announced on social media that it had forced to travel more than 1,600 kilometers over several days to bring 162 survivors to safety after Italian authorities ignored pleas for a closer port of entry.

“We are being punished for simply fulfilling our legal duty to save lives,” said Juan Matias Gil, a representative of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. statement after a 60-day detention order was issued to his rescue ship in August.

This “rampant criminalization” of civilian rescue operations unnecessarily puts lives at risk, said researcher Gordon, who also works with Wilfrid Laurier University’s International Center for Migration Research.

“I think it also has a lot to do with the rise of far-right governments in Europe.”

The number of migrants to Italy is dropping dramatically

The policies of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was elected in 2022 on an anti-immigration platform, have delivered results for her government in 2024. Just over 66,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat last year, roughly 60 percent less than the 157,000 who arrived in 2023. into the country Report of the Ministry of the Interior.

The number of recorded deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean Sea – already a minimum estimate, as many ships disappear without a trace during the crossing – fell by about 28 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to IOM data.

“The fact that we have fewer arrivals does not mean that we have less risk,” Nicola Dell’Arciprete, the country coordinator for UNICEF’s migration and refugee response in Italy, told CBC News.

Dell’Arciprete has worked with children who have fled war, extreme poverty or political unrest. Many come without parents or guardians.

They really run away from nightmares, he said. “The factors pushing people towards Europe are not really changing.”

Reducing the number of migrant deaths requires more investment in reception centers, contingency plans for periods of high arrivals, safer and more legal immigration routes and increased search and rescue operations, Dell’Arciprete said, adding that the question is whether “the political will is there to move that way.”

This year, European countries will evaluate their regulations in order to plan the implementation of new ones European Union Pact on Asylum and Migration. The pact, the first update to Europe’s asylum laws in two decades, was agreed in 2024 but will not be fully implemented until 2026.

The EU pays countries to control migrants

Italy and the EU have mainly focused on countries of origin to control migrants. The EU delivered ten million euros in aid Tunisia 2023 strengthen border controls and prevent migrant boats from leaving its shores, wrote a The contract is worth 7.4 billion euros (Cdn 11 billion) to strengthen “stability” in Egypt, with a focus on migration control.

Meloni played a key role in securing the deal with Tunisia, which is now largely credited with reducing the number of migrants in 2024, along with a similar deal Italy struck with Libya in 2017.

Human rights groups have said returning migrants found at sea to Libya exposes them to torture and ill-treatment during arbitrary detention.

Despite this, Italy’s immigration policy has received praise from other European leaders, such as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who September praised Italy is “remarkable progress”.

Italy’s latest tactic to cut back on migrants backfired last fall, when Meloni struck a deal with Albania that would see up to 36,000 asylum seekers sent directly to a non-EU country each year to await deportation, only for Italian courts to refuse to confirm transfer of migrants.

The plan is now stalled due to disagreements over what constitutes a safe country, although Meloni pledged in December to continue the project.

Experts say that without significant changes, the tragedies in the Mediterranean will continue.

“Until we strengthen search and rescue operations, until we create safe and legal pathways for children to travel to Europe, we will see more people die,” Dell’Arciprete said. “And that’s a simple fact.”