Migrant deaths, disappearances exceed 3,000 for 5th straight year: IOM

More than 3,000 people are believed to have died or gone missing on migratory routes across the globe for the fifth straight year, the UN migration agency, IOM, reported Tuesday.

In a statement, the IOM said that its Missing Migrants Project is still collecting final data for 2018, but that at least 4,592 migrants reportedly died or disappeared during their journeys.

Underlining the perils involved, multiple tragedies on all three Mediterranean routes in the final two weeks of 2018 claimed the lives of at least 23 people including two children; 31 others are reported missing.

The coast guards, navies and rescue agencies of several nations, non-governmental groups running rescue operations and a U.S.-flagged cargo vessel together reportedly rescued at least 135 migrants at sea in the final two weeks of the year, said the IOM.

The global total was, however, down 20 percent from the previous year, and it was over 8,000 in 2016.

Half of the total, 2,297, of those people, were among the more than 116,000 migrants known to have attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa into Europe, said IOM.

"There are few reliable sources of information about deaths and disappearances due to the clandestine nature of irregular migration, so the data collected in some regions, particularly the desert approaches to Mediterranean crossing routes, are incomplete," said IOM.

In the Americas, six people, including a nine-year-old Haitian girl, died attempting to enter the United States, said the statement.