MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The record number of migrant deaths, six times higher than in the same month last year, was recorded in the Mediterranean Sea in November following six shipwrecks earlier this week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday.
"These six latest incidents mean that IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has already recorded 546 migrant deaths in the Mediterranean this November, compared to 81 during the period 1-17 November 2015. This means that migrant deaths in November 2016 are over 6 times higher than the number of deaths recorded in November last year," the IOM report read.
The six shipwrecks resulted in 20 deaths and 350 people missing, presumed dead, according to the report. This brought the number of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean Sea so far in 2016 to record 4,621 in comparison with 3,777 migrants deaths last year.
The majority of them cross the Mediterranean Sea and arrive in the European Union using southern EU nations as transit points. The overall number of migrants that arrived to Europe by sea in 2016 stands for 343,589, according to the IOM.
