The Mexico-United States border was the world’s most dangerous land route for migrants in 2022, with nearly 700 dying or going missing, the UN migration agency said on Tuesday.
“The International Organization for Migration (IOM) documented 686 deaths and disappearances of migrants on the US-Mexico border in 2022, making it the deadliest land route for migrants worldwide on record,” it said.
“The figure represents nearly half of the 1,457 migrant deaths and disappearances recorded throughout the Americas in 2022, the deadliest year on record since IOM’s Missing Migrants Project (MMP) began in 2014.”
Nearly half (307) of the deaths on the United States-Mexico border were linked to the hazardous crossing of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, far more than other desert regions where irregular migration is prevalent.
At least 212 people died in the Sahara Desert in 2022, but the remote nature of such areas means that data were likely incomplete, it said.
