Credit: Wikipedia Public Domain /  Photo provided by U.S.  Custom and Border Protection to reporter on tour of detention facility in McAllen, Texas. Reporters were not allowed to take their own photos. Children and juveniles in a wire mesh compartment, showing sleeping mats and thermal blankets on floor June 16, 2018. 

 By Gary Raynaldo      DIPLOMATIC TIMES 

UNITED NATIONS  –  Nearly 1,600  migrant children have been reported dead or missing since 2014, though many more go unrecorded,  according to data compiled the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Since 2014, IOM’s  Missing Migrants Project has recorded globally the deaths of more than 32,000 people. According to IOM, these figures are likely to be much lower than the real number of deaths, given that many bodies are never found or identified. These chilling figures are part of the IOM’s latest report titled Fatal Journeys Volume 4 – Missing Migrant Children.  The report  highlights the need for better data on migrant deaths and disappearances, particularly those of missing migrant children.

 IOM  Report Focuses On Missing/Dead  Migrant Children 

Credit: Wikipedia /  Alan Kurdi was a three-year-old Syrian boy of Kurdish ethnic background  whose image made global headlines after he drowned on 2 September 2015 in the Mediterranean Sea. He and his family were Syrian refugees trying to reach Europe amid the European refugee crisis.

IOM said this year’s global report focuses on a special theme – Missing Migrant Children – given the growing number of children embarking on  dangerous migrant journeys (1,600 dead/missing since 2014)  Although it is known that children are one of the  most vulnerable groups of migrants, data on the number of missing migrant children tend to be quite limited, IOM reports.   IOM said that the children-focused report was the organization’s contribution to a joint call to action launched in February 2018 by several international agencies, including the UN Children’s Fund, UN Refugee Agency and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  

Credit: By Gary Raynaldo /  Frank Laczko, director of global migration data – International Organization for Migration (IOM) speaks on the launch of a new report entitled “Fatal Journeys”  at press conference at UN world headquarters in New York  28 June 2019.

Frank Laczko, director of global migration data – International Organization for Migration (IOM), spoke at a press conference at UN world headquarters in New York last week on the latest report. Laczko made note of the shocking image captured on a few days earlier on June 24 of the bodies of Oscar Alberto Martínez and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, laying face down in murky waters in the Rio Grande as they had drowned crossing from Mexico into Texas near Brownsville after leaving the home in El Salvador.

DIPLOMATIC TIMES VIDEO /  -Frank Laczko, director of global migration data –  IOM

“The first conclusion the report focuses on in the incident that captured the world’s attention on Monday is not an isolated incident. Since 2014, we have recorded the deaths and disappearance of approximately 1,600 migrant and refugee children around the world. This year alone 73 children have died in different parts of the world. Some along the U.S. Mexico border, some in other parts of the Americas, many in the Mediterranean region, and Africa, and also in Asia. Our report highlights the fact we are dealing with a global phenomenon.”

-Frank Laczko, director of global migration data –  IOM

According to IOM data, in the Americas, an increasing number of deaths on the U.S.-Mexico border have been recorded each year since 2014,  totaling 1,907 over five years. The majority of migrant deaths in Central America occur in Mexico, with 576 deaths recorded between 2014 and 2018. 

Europe and the Mediterranean:

Between 2014 and 2018,  more than 17,900 people have died or went missing in the Mediterranean. The data indicate that the remains of almost 12,000 people who drowned in the Mediterranean since 2014 have not been recovered.

Asia:

Nearly 2,200 deaths were recorded during migration in South-East Asia between 2014 and 2018, at least 1,723 were Rohingya.  In the Middle East, 421 deaths were recorded over this period, with the largest number (145) occurring in 2018. The majority of 288 deaths recorded in South Asia since 2014 were of Afghan migrants.