The International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants Project has recorded more than 7,500 people who lost their lives or went missing in the course of migration in 2016, a 30-per cent increase over the number recorded in 2015. More than 5,000 migrant deaths and disappearances were recorded in the Mediterranean alone.

This data briefing, produced by IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre, discusses the data recorded by the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project in 2016, and the many challenges of collecting information on migrant deaths and disappearances worldwide. The briefing is divided into regional sections, highlighting areas of the world in which migrant deaths are most common, including the Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East, North Africa, South-East Asia, the United States–Mexico border, and Central and Southern America.