Nearly 8,000 migrants were reported dead or missing worldwide in 2025 while trying to reach safety or seek a better future, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday, Anadolu reported.
Maria Moita, director of the agencyâs Department of Humanitarian Response and Recovery, told reporters in Geneva that the figures reflected a worsening global situation.
âMore deaths than ever were recorded in Asia, with hundreds of Rohingya and Afghans among those affected,â Moita said and that migration pressures had not eased, but that routes had shifted due to conflict, climate shocks, labour demands and policy changes.
Read: More than 7,600 migrants died or went missing in 2025, UN agency says
âWhat we are seeing instead is that routes are changing,â Moita added. âSome established routes have seen fewer arrivals, but journeys have often become longer, more fragmented and increasingly dangerous.â
Andrea Garcia of the IOM said that the number recorded in 2025 was lower than in 2024, when 9,197 migrant deaths were reported worldwide.
Garcia explained that the lower figure for 2025 did not necessarily mean that fewer people had died, but rather reflected limited access to information and the difficulty of verifying many cases.
Garcia added that there were around 1,500 additional deaths or disappearances that the agency believed had occurred but could not confirm with sufficient certainty to include in the official total.
Read: UN says 53 migrants dead or missing after boat sinks off Libya
According to the IOM, the Central Mediterranean remained the worldâs deadliest migration route, while deaths in the Bay of Bengal rose for the third consecutive year. Land routes used by Afghans fleeing Afghanistan were also among the deadliest, the agency said
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