The UN agency cautioned that the real toll was likely substantially higher because many deaths and disappearances never enter official records. Thousands of people also remained unidentified, leaving families without confirmation of what happened to relatives who went missing while travelling.
Asia recorded the largest regional toll. Two reports drawing on the IOM release differed slightly on the exact figure, giving 2,778 and 2,788 deaths respectively; both showed a sharp increase from 2023. The Mediterranean remained one of the deadliest routes, with 2,452 deaths recorded, although that was 703 fewer than the previous year. Africa registered 2,242 deaths, an increase of 367.
Data for the Americas were not final, but at least 1,233 deaths had been documented. That total included 341 in the Caribbean. The Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama accounted for a record 174 deaths. Europe recorded at least 233.
IOM Deputy Director General for Operations Ugochi Daniels called the rising global toll preventable and said the increases across several regions required an international, comprehensive response. Julia Black, coordinator of the agency’s Missing Migrants Project, highlighted the additional harm caused when those who die cannot be identified.
The figures cover people who leave their usual place of residence for any reason and for any duration, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. The circumstances behind the deaths vary widely. Some people travel by unseaworthy boats; others confront dangerous terrain, harsh weather, violence, exploitation or abusive detention. Since 2022, violence has accounted for at least one in 10 deaths recorded by the project.
More than 74,000 migrants had been reported dead or missing since the IOM began compiling the data in 2014. The latest record therefore reflected both an immediate human loss and the limits of existing documentation: the confirmed number was a floor, not a full accounting. The agency’s findings placed emphasis on prevention, safer responses along migration routes and improved identification, rather than treating the annual total as a complete measure of the crisis.
The regional breakdown showed that no single route or cause lay behind the record. Fatalities were spread across land and sea corridors on several continents, while incomplete reporting varied between places. The provisional Americas figure and the difference between published Asia totals illustrated why the global count should be read as an evolving minimum rather than a final census.
