Global
Regions
0
YA
Select language
World Health
Organization
Health Topics
Countries
Newsroom
Emergencies
Data
About WHO
Home
News
Act now to save lives and prevent migrants from going missing
Act now to save lives and prevent
migrants from going missing
March 2022
Joint News Release
Reading time:
min (1327 words)
Media Contacts
Thousands of migrants go missing or die each year along migration routes. In 2018, United Nations Member States
WHO Media inquiries
committed to "save lives and establish coordinated international efforts on missing migrants" by adopting the Global
Telephone: +41 22 791 2222
Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).
Four years and more than 15,000 documented deaths
Email: mediainquiries@who.int
later; efforts to provide
meaningful response to this ongoing human tragedy cannot be put off any further:
As heads of the United Nations Network on Migration's Executive Committee, the International Committee of the Red
Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Commission on
Missing Persons
we call on States to urgently assume collective responsibility to save lives and prevent migrants
Related
from going missing or dying along migration routes and to search for and identify those who have gone missing and
to assist their families. This is in line with the GCM; including Objectives 8 (save lives),
(regular pathways) ,
(reduce vulnerabilities in migration) , and 23 (strengthen international cooperation) and with relevant obligations under
Refugee and migrant health
international law:
With migration policies becoming ever more restrictive and as safe and regular migration pathways remain out of
reach for so many; including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people seeking family reunification ,
decent work; dignity; better opportunities or who are compelled to leave owing to disasters and precarious situations
have few options other than irregular migration along riskier routes and are often forced to rely on smugglers to
facilitate the passage_
The consequences are acutely visible: from the Mediterranean Sea; the Atlantic Ocean
and
the Andaman Sea; to the Sahara Desert, and along migration corridors in the Americas, the death or disappearance
of migrants has become all too frequent:
Over the past eight years
more than 47,000 people have died along these and other routes around the world. Many
more deaths
Mnrecorded
Thic fiqure does not include the thoucands of midrants who no micsind pach Vpar