“Anyone can drown; no one should.” This is the slogan for World Drowning Prevention Day, prominently featured on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) campaign page for 2025. Despite this inclusive message, there is no mention of the thousands of migrants who drown each year in pursuit of refuge or opportunity.
The WHO’s first-ever global report on drowning prevention, released at the end of 2024, similarly omits findings on migrant drownings, citing methodological limitations. Recognizing the limits of available data should not prevent us from highlighting the reality of many people on the move who are impacted by drowning.
Migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers often drown while in search of safety, often in treacherous waters and under desperate circumstances. Their deaths are not anomalies; they are preventable and often ignored. Their voices and experiences deserve to be acknowledged and included in the discussion for World Drowning Prevention Day.
Pushbacks and Externalization
The WHO’s global report on drowning prevention recognizes that migration and refugee-seeking at sea, especially through irregular channels and across dangerous conditions, are associated with heightened risks of drowning. It also notes that many migrants and asylum seekers travel in overcrowded, unsafe vessels that lack proper safety equipment and are often operated by untrained personnel. Adding to these risks is the inability of migrants and asylum seekers to access the territory and the subsequent asylum procedures of the countries they are attempting to reach.
States increasingly rely on externalization policies, such as interdiction and pushbacks, to prevent migrants from reaching their shores. Migrants intercepted in international waters have been denied access to asylum processes and repatriated to their country of origin or returned to their country of departure. Since there is no internationally agreed-upon definition, pushbacks can take several forms.[1]
Pushbacks often include excessive use of force and degrading and inhumane treatment of migrants and asylum seekers. There have been instances where State authorities have rerouted and disabled vessels, stranding migrants in extra-territorial waters. Other reports reveal that officials have prevented rafts carrying people from reaching land and have towed them back to sea, abandoning them without the means of propulsion, sometimes with deadly consequences. Pushbacks, other externalization practices, and a lack of safe migration pathways have left thousands of migrants and asylum seekers dead.
Figures from Around the World
The Missing Migrants Project, led by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), has recorded the deaths of 75,544 people who have lost their lives during migration journeys since 2014. Of these deaths, nearly 60 percent (43,519) are attributed to drowning. IOM’s data reflect only confirmed cases and are widely understood to be minimum estimates, as many migration-related deaths go undocumented. As a result, the figures presented in this report underestimate the true number of migrants who have drowned during migration journeys.
The Americas
Migration in the Americas is complex, dynamic, and includes mixed flows of people moving for a variety of reasons, including individuals fleeing violence, poverty, political instability, climate-related disasters, and those seeking refuge and asylum. Popular migration routes in the Americas include movement from Andean countries to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil; crossing the infamous and treacherous Darién from South and Central America; riding atop freight trains like La Bestia, or otherwise traveling through Mexico; and using irregular maritime routes across the Caribbean Sea, the Pacific, and surrounding waters.
Externalization practices, such as physical barriers and policies like the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as “Remain in Mexico,” have pushed people toward dangerous alternatives, including irregular maritime routes via the Pacific Ocean and other nearby bodies of water. These practices have also likely contributed to a rise in drownings among asylum seekers and migrants attempting to reach the United States. A study analyzing the relationship between increased border barrier heights and migrant fatalities found that drownings have increased among those attempting to swim, float, or cross the border using small boats or personal watercraft.
According to the Missing Migrants Project, more than 11,000 migrants have been recorded dead or missing in the Americas, with nearly 4,000 deaths due to drowning since 2014. Of those, nearly 800 occurred while crossing the Caribbean en route to the United States.
The Mediterranean Migration Route
The Mediterranean migration route refers to the dangerous sea journey undertaken by migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers across the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, often fleeing conflict, poverty, or persecution. Smugglers frequently facilitate these crossings, transporting people from Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia in overcrowded, unseaworthy boats. Those attempting the journey face high risks of drowning or interception. Thousands have died attempting the crossing each year, making it one of the deadliest migration routes in the world.
Despite landmark rulings affirming the obligation of States to protect the lives of migrants at sea, accountability remains elusive. On June 12, 2025, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to assess whether Italy was complicit in the deaths of at least 20 migrants who drowned while crossing the Mediterranean on a rubber dinghy from Libya. Although Italy’s Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre received the distress call, it deferred responsibility to the Libyan Joint Rescue Coordination Centre. The Court found that providing material support did not amount to effective control or authority over the rescue operation, and therefore, Italian officials could not be held legally accountable for failing to assist migrants in distress. The continued shirking of responsibility for migrants at sea puts lives at risk and contributes to preventable drowning.
According to the Missing Migrants Project, more than 32,000 migrants have been recorded dead or missing in the Mediterranean since 2014. In 2024 alone, more than 2,500 deaths or disappearances were documented in the region. In 2025, that number has already reached 863, including 42 children.
The Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea
Migration in Asia is complex, driven by economic inequality, conflict, and environmental degradation. Limited safe and legal pathways, however, have forced many to rely on irregular and dangerous sea routes.
The Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea form one of the deadliest migration corridors in the world, where stateless Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants risk their lives on perilous sea journeys. The worsening humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, combined with the protracted refugee situation and unlivable camp conditions in Bangladesh, has driven more people to undertake these dangerous crossings in search of safety.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than 7,800 Rohingya attempted to flee Myanmar by boat in 2024, an 80 percent increase from the previous year. Over 650 were recorded dead or missing.
Earlier this year, UNHCR reported on two boat tragedies off the coast of Myanmar where an estimated 427 Rohingya refugees died. Over half were said to have left from refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, while the remainder departed from Rakhine State in Myanmar. In 2025, more than 3,000 Rohingya have already embarked on this perilous journey, with 457 reported dead or missing.
“No one should lose their life in pursuit of safety or a better future. Every life lost on migration routes in Asia, or anywhere else, is a stark reminder of the urgent need for safe and regular migration pathways—these are preventable tragedies.”
- Iori Kato, Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, IOM
At the end of April 2025, there were 122.1 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, marking a decade of steady growth in the number of refugees and others forced to flee their homes. Rising anti-immigrant sentiment, xenophobia, and nationalism have placed growing pressure on policymakers to tighten borders. With more people displaced and fewer safe, regular pathways, dangerous irregular migration is likely to increase.
The WHO affirms that every drowning is preventable and that solutions exist. For asylum seekers and migrants, those solutions look like safe, legal pathways and access to protections without the need to risk dangerous conditions. A true commitment to drowning prevention must include a commitment to protecting the most vulnerable.
World Drowning Prevention Day is an opportunity to widen the lens. Let us ensure that those seeking refuge and opportunity, from sea to shining sea, are not left out of the conversation.
[1] The special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
defines pushbacks as “various measures taken by States which result in migrants, including asylum-seekers, being summarily forced back to the country from where they attempted to cross or have crossed an international border without access to international protection or asylum procedures or denied of any individual assessment on their protection needs which may lead to a violation of the principle of non-refoulement.”
