Last year was the deadliest for migrants in the Middle East and North Africa since 2017, the United Nations said Tuesday.

About 3,800 people died on migrants’ sea and land routes within and from the region, according to data released by the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project.

The tally is an 11% increase compared to the 3,428 deaths recorded in 2021, and the highest since 2017, when the project documented the death of 4,255 people in the region, reports AP.

The data show that the region accounted for more than half of the 6,877 deaths the project documented across the world.

The project, however, said the true tally is likely much higher than the 3,789 documented fatalities, given the scarcity of official data and limited access to land routes in the region for civil society and international organizations.

Source: Bahrain News Agency