Significantly fewer migrants are reaching Europe by sea this year, and yet more are dying as people take increasingly dangerous journeys to reach the continent, the U.N. migration agency warned Thursday.

Nearly 60,000 migrants and refugees arrived on European shores in 2026 by Sept. 15, down nearly 40% compared to the same period last year, the International Organization for Migration said. But nearly 2,300 people died or went missing trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea or the Atlantic Ocean in 2026, compared to nearly 2,000 in the same period of 2025.

“Nearly every death and disappearance at sea is preventable,” said IOM’s Director General Amy Pope, who called on authorities to step up international cooperation to save lives, combat trafficking and provide alternative legal migration pathways. “Behind every number is a human being, a family, a community.”

The Central Mediterranean route to Italy saw the sharpest fall, from more than 48,000 arrivals last year to more than 21,000 this year. Yet 996 people died so far this year, up from 844 in the same period last year.

Since taking office in 2022, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has made reducing irregular migration a key priority, pursuing agreements with North African countries like Tunisia and Libya, and cracking down on humanitarian groups rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean.

Fewer migrants are reaching Europe by sea but more people are dying, IOM warns | iNFOnews.ca — Coffins of migrants who drowned at sea are prepared for a burial in Ben Guerdane, Tunisia, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026, after their boat capsized off the country’s southeastern coast. (AP Photo/Bassem Aouini)

In Greece, arrivals were down by roughly 5,000 but deaths were up by 47%. That’s in part because more and more migrants are trying to reach Crete from eastern Libya, a longer and more dangerous sea route than crossing the Aegean from Turkey.

Deaths on migration routes to Spain, which includes the vast and deadly Atlantic Ocean journey from West Africa to the Canary Islands, also remained high despite an overall fall in arrivals. In the Ceuta border crisis of July 30 and 31 alone, at least 97 people died on the Spanish side of the border with Morocco, according to IOM.

Still, the agency warned the true death toll is likely much higher as many shipwrecks and disappearances cannot be confirmed and go unrecorded. One of the reasons for this: authorities are less and less transparent about what happens at sea, the AP has found.