A Venezuelan girl waits at a reception centre in Pacaraima, a city in northern Brazil that lies across the Venezuelan border.
More than 800,000 Venezuelans have come to Brazil in recent years, seeking medical attention, food, and new opportunities.
When they cross the northern border, they are offered overnight accommodation, food, protection, and hygiene services at the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Reception and Support Post (PRA) in Pacaraima as part of the Operação Acolhida, or Operation Welcome programme.
Find out more about Operação Acolhida, and the people it is supporting, here.
Thousands searching for a better life meet their death crossing deserts, rivers and remote areas in the region. IOM’s Missing Migrants Project, documented 1,433 deaths last year – the highest number since its establishment in 2014.
The Project is run by the UN agency’s Global Data Institute (GDI), which this week launched the first Network on Missing Migrants in the Americas.
Save lives, provide support
The objective is to save lives, improve data collection and support the families of survivors.
“When people have access to safe and regular migration pathways, that increases the likelihood that they can contribute to economic prosperity at home and in their places of destination,” said GDI Director Koko Warner.
She added that a lack of these regular pathways “often has tragic results and is a lost opportunity”.
The network connects civil society organizations, government institutions, journalists, and other key actors. Participants meet in “virtual cafés”, a Missing Migrants Project initiative established three years ago.
Searching for loved ones
The first session, held on Wednesday, focused on the challenges that families from Central America face in the search for their missing loved ones.
Although the exact number of those who die transiting through this region is unknown, at least 7,495 people lost their lives between 2014 and 2022, according to Missing Migrants Project data.
People walk the streets of Lajas Blancas in Panama, a migrant reception centre close to the border with Colombia.
The new network will also work to strengthen national and regional capacities for the collection and exchange of data on migrant deaths and disappearances.
Actions will include issuing recommendations to try and prevent these deaths and disappearances, searching for and identifying the deceased, and providing support and reparation to their families. It will also facilitate the creation of strategic alliances among participants by conducting joint investigations, among other measures.
Café initiative
The Missing Migrants Project established the “virtual cafés” initiative in 2020.
IOM said to date, they remain the only space in the Americas where civil society representatives, journalists, artists, researchers, and representatives of governmental and intergovernmental institutions, have met specifically to discuss issues related to migrant deaths and disappearances.
The blaze at the migrant centre which was reportedly run by Mexico’s National Migration Institute in Ciudad Juarez, began during a protest against imminent deportations on Monday night, according to local officials.
There were 68 adult men in total staying at the facility, the Institute reported.
News reports said that most of the victims are believed to be Venezuelans, Guatemalans and other Central American nationals.
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said in a televised news conference, that according to local sources, migrants had set their own mattresses alight, anticipating that they were to be expelled – unaware of the tragic consequences of their protest.
The city located right on the border across from El Paso, Texas, has seen an influx in migrants hoping to reach the US ahead of the anticipated end of the so-called Title 42 COVID-era restrictions, which authorizes the expulsion of migrants on emergency health grounds.
A sign on the border wall with the USA in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
UN chief ‘deeply saddened’
Briefing correspondents at the regular noon briefing in New York, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, said the UN chief António Guterres was “deeply saddened” by the deaths, and wished a speedy recovery to those injured.
The Spokesperson added that the Secretary-General was calling for “a thorough investigation into this tragic event, and of course we all reiterate our commitment to work with the authorities of countries where mixed movements of people occur, to establish safer, more regulated, and more organised migration routes.”
Exploitation by criminal gangs
Asked to comment further on how the UN could intervene to make conditions on the Mexico-US border safer for desperate migrants, Mr. Dujarric said that Member States needed to live up to the commitments they have made, as signatories to the UN-led Global Compact for Migration.
“What we have now, broadly, are criminal gangs, basically managing global migration, with the horrific results that we see every day.”
“I’m from Jarra, a rural area in the Lower River Region of The Gambia, in the middle of the country. I moved to the capital, Banjul, when I was 15, to live with my brother and go to high school. I didn’t graduate, though, because we couldn’t afford the fees.
Around five years ago, when I was about 20, my friends encouraged me to leave The Gambia. This is not a wealthy country, and we heard that people had left, and became successful in Europe, sending money back to their families.
I wanted to go to Italy, because I thought that this was the easiest European country to get to. I knew that many people had died trying to get to Europe, but I thought that I could make it.
The first step was neighbouring Senegal, and from there we got a bus to Mauritania. I stayed there, with my sister’s husband, for five months, doing construction work, and whatever I could, to earn money for the next stage of the journey.
From Mauritania I went to Mali. This was a very long bus journey, and it took about 12 hours to get to the capital, Bamako. There were many other Gambians on the bus. Then we went to Agadez, in central Niger, via Burkina Faso. At each stage, we had to pay to be allowed to continue. We felt in danger but, by that stage, it was too late to go back.
There were about 25 of us in an open pickup truck, driving through the desert, with no shade. It was very hot and uncomfortable. We drove for three days, sleeping in the desert. At night, it was very cold, and we had to buy blankets and big jackets to keep us warm.
‘I was scared they would shoot us’
Sometimes the drivers were nice people, but others were very harsh, and they would beat us. When we got into Libya, we were beaten, and all of our money was taken from us. Luckily, I had hidden some food in the bus. The people who beat us had guns, and I was very scared that they would shoot us.
The next stage of the journey was to Sabhā, in central Libya. Because I had no money, I had to stay in Sabhā for four months, finding work to pay for my fare to Tripoli.
When you travel from Sabhā to Tripoli, you have to be smuggled in. If you are seen, people might kill you, so I had to hide in a dark room with no lights for three days. This was during the civil war, and there was a lot of danger.
‘They shot the boat’
I had to wait over a year in Tripoli before I could get to the coast and take a boat for Italy. One of my brothers found the money for me to get a place on the boat. Before we set off, there was some shooting and we soon realized that our boat was taking on water:.
There were armed men who didn’t want us to leave for Europe, so they just shot the boat, not caring if any of us died in the water. Our only option was to turn back towards the Libyan coast and, when the boat had taken on too much water, we swam to shore.
When we arrived on shore, we were taken to a detention centre. We were beaten by soldiers, who told us to give them money, but I had nothing left. I had to stay there for two months in these harsh, dirty conditions. Our phones were taken from us so we couldn’t contact our families; many of them though that we were dead.
UN News/ Hisae Kawamori
Amadou Jobe found a job in the Gambia capital Banjul, after a failed attempt to reach Europe by boat.
Starting again from zero
Eventually, people from the UN came to the centre. They gave us clothes and some food and offered us a voluntary flight back to The Gambia.
I was very sad: I had lost everything and would have to start again from zero. I didn’t want to return home, but I had no choice.
When I arrived in The Gambia, the UN migration agency (IOM) offered to help me to start a business. They asked me what I wanted to do and, because of my experience working in construction, I told them that I could sell cement.
They provided me with tailored in-kind support in the form of a cement business, but, unfortunately, the place I found to store the bags of cement was not protected from the weather: it was the rainy season, and the water reached all of the cement. It was ruined.
I went back to the UN to ask for more help, and they offered me skills training. This was very useful, and I was able to get a certificate and go back to working with aluminium. I got a job working in a friend’s shop in Banjul, which sells aluminium window frames.
In the future, once I can raise the money, I plan to open my own shop. I’m married now and I have two children. I want to succeed here now, and I wouldn’t try to retry that journey to Europe. It’s too risky. If you don’t succeed, you lose everything.”
“In the ruins of historic Antakya city today, I met proud and brave people whose past has been eradicated, whose present is full of suffering and whose future is uncertain,” said António Vitorino, following a two-day visit to Türkiye, which included meetings with senior Government officials.
“I am in awe of IOM colleagues and our many partners who began responding within hours of the earthquake, despite being affected themselves.
‘Now comes the long haul’
“But now comes the long haul; standing in solidarity and action with Türkiye as it rebuilds and creates a new future for the millions whose lives have been torn apart,” added Mr. Vitorino.
He said the sacrifices made by the numerous “humanitarian heroes” who dug so many out of the would never be forgotten, “and one of the reasons I am here is to pay tribute and condolences to them, and particularly to the families of the three IOM staff who perished.
“Our teams overcame complex coordination and logistical issues, as well as personal tragedies, to get aid rapidly to affected communities in Türkiye and northwest Syria.”
Three days after the disaster, IOM was one of the first UN agencies to restart cross border assistance, noted Mr Vitorino, visiting a logistics hub close to the border, which has been vital to the response as a transit point for thousands of tons of aid being brought into northwest Syria.
150 trucks and counting
So far in the response, IOM has dispatched over 150 aid trucks across the border.
The UN reports that more than 500,000 in Syria have been made homeless by the earthquakes, and in Türkiye, more than 1.9 million are staying in temporary accommodation shelters, with 2.5 million children needing urgent humanitarian assistance.
A total of 850,00 children from both countries are displaced, and the UN emergency response plans for both countries requires nearly $1.4 billion to cover the first three months of critical aid. More than five million across Türkiye need life-saving assistance.
The 2023 response plan for Syria overall, will require $4.8 billion, the largest humanitarian appeal currently active.
Mr. Vitorino met Türkiye’s Presidency of Migration Management at a Government-run temporary accommodation centre for those made homeless, including the local community, migrants and some Syrians under temporary protection.
IOM 2023/Enver Mohammed
Debris of quake-ruined buildings on one of the central streets of Antakya city, Hatay.
‘We’ve lost it all’
Nawfal Melish, a Syrian national now living at the centre, told the IOM chief that has family used to live in Hatay and wanted for nothing.
“But now we’ve lost it all. I worked in a shop, but that was destroyed by the earthquake, just like my house, but now we will start a new life. We are finding this displacement more difficult than the first one, when we had to leave Syria because of the war.”
On Friday, in the capital Ankara, Mr Vitorino met the head of the Coordination Centre of the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management office, Yunus Sezer, a Government agency leading the response.
“I was highly impressed with the Turkish Government’s emergency response in the face of an unimaginable calamity, he said, “and I am ever more proud of the strong relationship IOM has had with this country since our local office was first opened over 30 years ago.
Support for moving forward
“We continue to provide our operational capacity and experience to the Government to support them in moving forward on the road to recovery”.
IOM’s appeal for $161 million to support response efforts in Türkiye and northwest Syria is currently less than 30 per cent funded.
Renewed violent clashes between non-state armed groups and government forces have sparked the latest emergency, with 300,000 people forced to flee their homes in North Kivu Province in February alone.
According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, another 20,000 fled at the start of the week and nearly 50,000 became displaced from the Kitchanga region in Masisi territory during the week of 17 February.
Survivors
“Civilians continue to pay the heavy and bloody price of conflict, including women and children who barely escaped the violence and are now sleeping out in the open, in spontaneous or organized sites, exhausted and traumatised,” said UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh.
“UNHCR teams on the ground reported horrifying testimonies of human rights violations in affected areas, especially in Rutshuru and Masisi territories, including arbitrary killings, kidnappings, extortion and rapes,” the UNHCR spokesperson continued.
Lacking resources
Conditions are dire for those arriving at spontaneous or organized sites, which the UN refugee agency said were now buckling under the strain.
The resurgence of violence in eastern DR Congo has displaced more than 800,000 people since March last year, including towards the provinces of South Kivu and Ituri.
Relief items are distributed to displaced people in Plain Savo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
More than 130 armed groups operate at the border between DR Congo and Rwanda, including the M23 militia, which has in the past targeted Government forces and the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MONUSCO.
The resurgence of violence in the region has displaced over 800,000 people since March last year, including towards the provinces of South Kivu and Ituri.
Standing by
Where access permits, UNHCR teams are positioned to provide psychosocial counselling and community support for those traumatised by what they have witnessed or endured.
Humanitarians have continued to warn that despite “all efforts” to provide protection and assistance to those displaced close to Goma, Nord Kivu’s provincial capital, relief access remains complicated as major routes have frequently been rendered inaccessible because of ongoing conflict.
More than 5,500 people have also crossed the border into neighbouring Rwanda since January, and a further 5,300 into Uganda as insecurity and violence continue to ravage border regions.
Women collect water at a camp for displaced people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Stop the fighting
“UNHCR strongly reiterates its call on all actors in eastern DRC to stop the violence which is taking an enormous toll on the civilian population,” the UN agency said in a statement.
The DRC is the largest internal displacement crisis in Africa, with 5.8 million people internally displaced, mainly in the east of the country. It also hosts over a million refugees from neighbouring countries.
It is also one of UNHCR’s most underfunded operations worldwide. For 2023, UNHCR is asking for $232.6 million to assist internally displaced people and refugees in the DRC. As of today, the DRC operation is only eight per cent funded.
“Every person searching for a better life deserves safety and dignity,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said. “We need safe, legal routes for migrants and refugees.”
The UN refugee agency (UNCHR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in a joint statement, expressed condolences for the victims and called on countries to increase resources and capabilities to effectively meet their responsibilities.
Death toll could rise
As of Sunday evening, 45 lifeless bodies had been recovered, but ongoing search and rescue teams fear the death toll could be worse, the agencies said. News reports said a newborn and small children were among the dead.
Reports indicate that at least 170 people were on board the small vessel, including children and families. The UN refugee agency said that information received shows that there may be as many as 80 survivors. Some of them have been hospitalized for treatment.
‘Unacceptable horrors’
“It is unacceptable to witness such horrors, with families and children entrusted to unseaworthy boats,” said Chiara Cardoletti, the UNHCR representative for Italy, the Holy See and San Marino. “This tragedy must prompt us to act and act now.”
The boat had left Turkey, with many passengers coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2022, people from Turkey accounted for around 15 per cent of total arrivals by sea in Italy, UNHCR said, noting that nearly half of the people arriving along this route were people fleeing Afghanistan.
‘Insufficient’ rescue capacities
The agencies said European Union mechanisms for rescue operations are “urgently needed”.
To avoid tragedies like this, Ms. Cardoletti said, it is “more necessary than ever before to strengthen the rescue capacity, which is still insufficient”.
Laurence Hart, director of the IOM Coordination Office for the Mediterranean, said this shipwreck demonstrates how the phenomenon of migration by sea must be tackled by all European nations.
New approach needed
This requires humanitarian support and adopting an approach that considers the multiple drivers that are causing people to flee, she said.
The IOM Missing Migrants Project reports that at least 220 people, including those who perished on Sunday, have died or gone missing along the central Mediterranean routein 2023.
Johannes Fromholt is currently near the frontline in Donetsk Oblast and has been describing the support the UN is providing.
“I am currently in Kurakhove, which is close to the frontline. We see heavy fighting, which has intensified even in the past week. We came here as part of a UN interagency humanitarian convoy, to provide communities with humanitarian assistance.
Of course, there is extensive damage; some towns in this area are 80 to 90 per cent damaged, some even more. So actually, you could say they don’t even exist anymore. Even on the way to Kurakhove a missile strike occurred in a nearby city, which killed three people and injured 12.
It’s important that we continue supporting, as much as possible, the frontline locations with humanitarian assistance. In Kurakhove where I currently am, there are approximately 12,000 people in need. This humanitarian convoy is the first of twelve convoys going to front line locations in the next five days.
In total across the country, there are nearly 18 million people, that’s almost 40 per cent of the Ukraine population in need of humanitarian assistance. And this includes the western parts of Ukraine, to a lesser extent, the center and north, but mainly in the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine, where we also have the frontline at the moment.
A woman walks past a destroyed apartment block in western Ukraine.
There are 5.3 million IDPs, internally displaced persons, within Ukraine and we know that around eight million people have also fled to neighboring countries.
Milder winter
Luckily, it’s been a somewhat mild winter compared to Ukrainian standards, but people still need to stay warm. They have been provided with basic humanitarian assistance such as food, hygiene items, winter clothes, solar lamps, as people are really staying down in the bunkers, especially in the areas where there’s shelling on a daily basis.
These bunkers and basements are, of course, cold as there’s no electricity in these frontline locations.
There has been a massive scale-up in needs for generators, water pumps and water systems
in the last two or three months since the Russians started attacking and destroying critical infrastructure, which we have supported.
And there are people with incredible humanitarian needs on the other side of the frontline in Russian-held territory. At the moment, the UN has not been able to access these areas.
As IOM, we are supporting both the war affected communities and the people staying behind. But we also supporting especially the IDPs in regions further away from the frontlines.
So far, we have supported 102 collective centers with various types of relief to improve living conditions inside the centers.
We have provided emergency shelter kits for people staying in damaged apartments or houses. We have also been distributing cash to over 70,000 people who are very close to the frontline locations. This is actually an approach that the government would like other humanitarian actors to use.
Psychosocial support
One other concern is supporting mental health services and psychosocial support, especially for people in the frontline locations, but also people who are on the move following the outbreak of war broke.
People are resilient and try to adapt, but after some time, of course they need support to talk about their emotions and feelings. And this not only includes IDPs, but also veterans and the families coming back from the war.
One year into the war, it’s important that we try to end it as quickly as possible.
The Regional Migrant Response Plan, launched this week, will address the dire needs and protection risks facing people along the treacherous Eastern Route towards the Arabian Peninsula.
Other objectives include scaling-up delivery of lifesaving and resilience-building initiatives and implementing long-term sustainable solutions for both migrants and host communities.
Dangerous journeys
The Eastern Route is one of the busiest, most complex and dangerous migration corridors in the world, cutting through deserts, seas and war-torn Yemen.
Every year, thousands of people from countries in the Horn of Africa leave their homelands and take to it in search of a better life elsewhere.
They are fleeing interconnected crises, including persistent insecurity and conflict, harsh climatic conditions, and public health emergencies, in addition to socio-economic drivers and more traditional seasonal factors.
Most make the dangerous crossing of the Red Sea through Bossaso in Somalia, and Djibouti’s coastal town of Obock to Yemen and further by land to Gulf countries.
‘An underserved crisis’
Last year, some 145,545 migrants entered Djibouti – almost double the number in 2021.
Additionally, 89 migrant deaths or disappearances were recorded along the Eastern Route due to hazardous transportation, illness, harsh environmental conditions, drowning at sea and violence. Many more deaths and disappearances go unreported.
“The Eastern Route is an underserved crisis easily forgotten amidst other global crises, and we must accord the migrants the support and dignity they deserve,” saidIOM Director General, António Vitorino.
Support for voluntary returns
The Regional Migrant Response Plan will address the most immediate and critical humanitarian and protection needs of migrants in vulnerable situations.
It will also support their voluntary return home in a safe and dignified manner, and ensure that they reintegrate back into their communities successfully.
“The plan provides a flexible mechanism for all stakeholders to respond to evolving migration trends, and broader humanitarian and development challenges affecting migrants, host communities and the respective governments,” said Mr. Vitorino.
Funding will further help efforts towards addressing the drivers of irregular migration and strengthen the capacity of governments in the region on migration management, including in ensuring greater coordination and collaboration.
Preliminary criminal proceedings opened last May in Sicily against 21 people charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigration in connection with several search-and-rescue missions conducted between 2016 and 2017.
Those accused include four crew members of the Iuventa, a former fishing trawler credited with saving some 14,000 migrant lives in the Mediterranean Sea, and human rights activists from other civilian vessels.
“They are being criminalised for their human rights work. Saving lives is not a crimeand solidarity is not smuggling.”
Ms. Lawlor has engaged with the authorities on the issue.
‘A very disturbing sign’
She noted that the proceedings have been plagued by procedural violations, including failure to provide adequate interpretation for non-Italian defendants, and translation of key documents.
Last month, the Italian Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Interior applied to join the case as plaintiffs, seeking compensation for damage claimed to have been caused by the alleged crimes.
“States that respect human rights promote the work of human rights defenders,” said Ms. Lawlor. “The Government’s decision to seek to join the case goes directly against this principle – it is a very disturbing sign.”
Lives at further risk
The case is unfolding against a backdrop of new restrictions imposed by the Italian authorities on civilian search and rescue operations.
Since December, NGO ships have consistently been instructed to disembark rescued persons at ports in north and central Italy, or several days’ sailing from rescue sites in the Central Mediterranean.
Furthermore, new regulations for civilian search and rescue, introduced in January, effectively prevent NGO captions from carrying out multiple rescues during a mission.
They must now request a port of disembarkation and head there without delay or risk facing heavy fines and having their vessels impounded.
Ms. Lawlor urged the Italian Government to repeal the legislation, which is incompatible with its obligations under international law.
“The new legislation and instructions on ports of disembarkation are obstructing essential activities of civilian rescue ships,” she said. “They are widening the search and rescue gap in the Central Mediterranean, putting lives and rights at further risk.”
About UN Rapporteurs
Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to monitor and report on a specific human rights theme or country situation.
They are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work.
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