According to figures published on Tuesday, September 12, 2023, by the U.N. migration agency, hundreds of people lose their lives attempting to make perilous desert crossings, making the U.S.-Mexico border the world’s deadliest land migration route.
Cameroonians and Africans have used and continue to travel through Mexico with the hope of getting to the US, their “dreamland.”
In its latest report, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says it documented 686 deaths and disappearances among migrants on the frontier last year, but missing data, including from the Texas border county coroner’s offices and the Mexican search and rescue agency, likely contributes to a higher actual figure.
Several migrants have reportedly fallen prey to heat stroke in the summer and hypothermia in the winter in a landscape of sweeping desert, canyons, and cactus-studded hills. U.S. border officials have said their bodies have never been found.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, IOM spokesperson Paul Dillon stated that the recorded figures “represent the lowest estimates available.”
He added that the alarming figures are a stark reminder of the need for decisive action to create regular legal migration pathways.
“The crossing of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts accounted for nearly half of the recorded deaths last year,” said IOM.
The organisation has also documented nearly half of the 1,457 deaths and disappearances recorded throughout the Americas last year along the border.
Dillon said, “IOM has seen one of the most concerning trends in the Americas, which is the increase in deaths on migration routes in the Caribbean.”
He also added that they documented 350 deaths in 2022, which is higher than the 245 deaths in 2021 and the fewer than 170 deaths recorded in previous years. People from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba comprised the majority of the victims on Caribbean migration routes.
141 migrant deaths were documented in the Darien Gap, a jungle border crossing between Panama and Colombia, in 2022, according to the IOM.
Dillon said, “The remote and dangerous nature of this area and the presence of criminal gangs along the route suggest that this figure likely does not accurately represent the actual number of lives lost.”
Last week, Panama announced new measures to curb rising migrant crossings through the Darien Gap, which have reached an all-time high this year.
This year, the BBC reported that over 600 Cameroonian migrants were reported to be stranded in the Caribbean islands.
Before circumstances related to limited finances and legal papers trapped them, they embarked on desperate journeys to the US through Mexico to seek asylum.
