Updated figures indicate that 2022 was the deadliest year for migrants along routes in the Americas, with 1,457 people dead or missing
The Missing Migrants Project of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), revealed 187 Venezuelan migrants have died or disappeared on routes to the Caribbean islands since 2014.
The project conducting the monitoring of incidents along migration routes across the world found that a total of 8,543 migrants have died or disappeared in Latin America, 4,852 of them while attempting to cross the Mexico-US border; a further 503 on their way to the US along the Caribbean; 342 while crossing the Darién gap and 328 in the maritime crossing from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico.
Regarding the trends for 2023, the project indicated that at least 1,078 migrants -including 74 minors-, have died or disappeared on routes across the Americas.
In addition to persons of Venezuelan nationality, 64 migrants traveling from Haiti to the Dominican Republic and 17 others traveling through the Caribbean to Central America are known to have died or gone missing.
Updated figures indicate that 2022 was the deadliest year for migrants along routes in the Americas, with 1,457 people dead or missing, followed by 2021 with 1,316. 2014 registered the lower number of victims in the period under review, with 493.
The IOM notes that “[t]he region of the Americas (containing South, Central and North America as well as the Caribbean), is characterized by complex and dynamic mixed migration flows, both intraregional and extra-regional.
“The people transiting through the Americas include refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants, short-term visitors and other people on the move. The drivers of migration and displacement are multi-faceted and include natural disasters, structural violence, poverty and inequality.” the organization adds.
A high-risk route for Venezuelan migrants
Boats with migrants were recently detained on the coasts of the Dutch Caribbean, a situation that reveals “lucrative human smuggling and trafficking routes”.
A report by InSight Crime recalled that on September 27, a Dutch coast guard ship intercepted two vessels carrying Venezuelan citizens.
The first of the boats was sailing to the island of Curacao with 14 adults and five minors. The second boat set sail from Paraguaná, in the western Venezuelan state of Falcón, and was trying to reach Aruba with 28 people onboard.
In early September, the Curaçao Prosecutor’s Office warned of an increase in cases of trafficking of minors between Venezuela and the Caribbean island.
“The trafficked children range in age between four and 15 years old, and are often transported on boats that also carry drugs and firearms,” the Prosecutor’s Office highlighted.
According to Insight Crime, although the attention of the migration crisis is focused on the horrors experienced by migrants in the Darién gao, the Caribbean remains a human trafficking route where criminal groups exploit this vulnerable population.
Translated by Jose Rafael Medina
