At least 1,697 people – men and women, children and the elderly – will die in the Mediterranean while trying to reach European shores in 2025 alone. Data from the Missing Migrants Projects (MMP), an IOM (International Organization for Migration) project that takes into account migrants who have died or gone missing in the world, also this year traces the path of a phenomenon that, although decreasing compared to last year, is still worrying. Of this number, it is known that 125 people are women, 545 men and 93 children. Meanwhile, the identities of the remaining 1,027 are unknown. Thus, the Mediterranean basin asserts itself, once again, as the deadliest place in the world for migrants fleeing their home countries.
In general, the trend at global level is a slight decrease in the death rate, although it must be remembered that the year is not yet over and that the death rate will continue to increase before the end of the year. In 2025 alone, there will be 1,521 deaths along the Asian route, in addition to 822 deaths in West Asia. Another 973 died in Africa, 89 in Europe (along the English Channel or on the borders of Poland and Belarus), 384 in South America. In the Mediterranean basin, route Central Mediterranean It is confirmed to be the world’s deadliest, with 568 migrants dying in the region and 619 others missing. Since 2014, that is, since the MMP project existed, several 33,172 deaths that occurred in the Mediterranean, yeah 25,772 is located in the middle.
There are various factors that influence these numbers, one of which is the main factor criminalization migration and non-governmental organizations involved in the rescue of migrants by European institutions and governments, first and foremost Italy. With Flow decisions approved earlier in the year by the Meloni administration, for example, the government has implemented tougher sanctions against vessels operating at sea, imposing longer administrative detentions, higher fines, and confiscation of vehicles. It has all of this direct consequences regarding the number of people rescued from shipwrecks, as well as from the violence of coastguards rounding up migrant boats in the Mediterranean, such as Libyan and Turkish vessels. However, with both governments, the EU and Italy, they have reached an agreement bilateral agreements and pactsprecisely to delegate migration control to those countries and stop migrants before they even leave. On the other hand, Libya and Tunisia are the countries of origin of almost all migrants crossing the central Mediterranean. The role of the two countries and their respective coast guards in the massacre, torture and abuse of migrants has been known for a long time, confirmed by journalistic investigations, NGO reports and official reports. A reality that Italy and the EU have chosen to look away from – as demonstrated, moreover, by Rome’s failure to arrest the perpetrators. Almasri, Libyan “torturer.”was later arrested by the same Libyan authorities for crimes committed in a migrant detention center. Thanks to the flow decision, among other things, it is impossible to know the amount of funds that Italy will provide to the Libyan authorities to block the departure.
Death at sea only part some of them are caused indirectly by European and Italian policies, which are increasingly aimed at the total closure of borders and their externalization. Alarmphone, an NGO involved in reporting the critical situation in the Mediterranean Sea, reported how institutional racism operates systematically in Tunisia and how migrants brought back on Coast Guard ships are then deported to the desert and abandoned, resulting in deaths. A similar situation is also described by many migrants regarding Algeria.
However, as has always been the case throughout history, stricter policies have not stopped migration. Indeed, the latest data provided by the Ministry of the Interior shows that, on November 25 2025, the number of migrants landing on Italian shores was already higher than in 2024 – 63,260 peoplecompared to 60,845 last year. Another confirmation that restrictive policies increase death rates, but do not stop the number of people.
