He estimates that around 1,700 people will go missing in 2023 on migration routes trying to reach Spain
Aug. 29 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Around 239,700 people are reported missing worldwide due to armed conflict, violence, natural disasters or migration, a figure that represents an increase of 18.6 percent compared to 2022, the Red Cross reported on Thursday.
The agency said in a statement published on the eve of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances that by the end of 2023, a total of 65,800 families of missing persons had turned to its Restoring Family Contact (RCF) service to request help in the process of searching for their relatives.
He noted that over the past year, the RCF has managed to locate more than 16,600 people, 21.6% more than the previous year, and reunite more than 7,900 missing people around the world with their families, which is 36.7% more than in 2022, although 239,700 are still listed as missing in the Red Cross and Red Crescent registers.
In the investigations opened to determine the whereabouts of the people finally located or to obtain information about them, 137,800 Red Cross messages were transmitted and more than two million telephone calls were made, which enabled the aforementioned contacts to be re-established.
NEARLY 1,600 MISSING TRYING TO REACH SPAIN
He also specified that, in the case of the Spanish Red Cross, nearly 90 percent of the searches it manages are linked to migration and added that, although historically forced disappearances have been associated above all with dictatorial regimes, at present it is observed that the increase in migratory flows constitutes a significant factor in the origin of these situations.
In this way, the Missing Migrants Project (PMD) of the Spanish Red Cross has been working to provide answers to the families of migrants who have died and disappeared en route to Spain since September 2021. To date, it has worked on 173 vessels, of which 65.3 percent were heading to or arriving in the Canary Islands.
In these more than 170 vessels, 1,599 people were reported missing, of which 1,160 – 72.5 percent – were related to the route to the Canary Islands, 349 to the Levante route and 90 to the southern Peninsula. During this period, 259 deaths were recorded whose bodies were recovered, with 74.5 percent of the total corresponding to the route to the Canary Islands.
The Red Cross has reported that some of the relatives of dead or missing migrants are turning to the agency for support and answers. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has estimated that more than 8,500 people have died on migration routes around the world in 2023.
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