Thousands of Deaths at Europe’s Doorstep

To see how the map evolves over time, scroll down this page or see here (note: due to the amount of data processed, the map may take a few tens of seconds to display or update).

This map by Nicolas Lambert shows how the seas bordering Europe have become cemeteries for tens of thousands of people fleeing war, dictatorship, or poverty. It presents 31 years of data, shifting "the perspective from isolated incidents to a geographic and systemic reading."

Since the early 2000s, nearly 68,000 people — women, men, and children — have perished attempting to reach Europe, a number equivalent to the population of a city like Calais, Colmar, Bourges, or Valence. Drownings, asphyxiation, accidents, crushing injuries, poisonings, explosions on minefields, deaths from hunger, thirst, exhaustion, lack of medical care, police violence, and more — each a human tragedy that could have been avoided. These shattered lives are the heavy price of a migration policy marked by indifference and repression, where solidarity could have offered everyone a different fate. These deaths are a stark and tragic manifestation of migrants’ vulnerability and the violence of the migration policies they endure.

A history in maps

In 2002, geographer Olivier Clochard, a researcher at the Migrinter laboratory and one of the founders of Migreurop, created the first-evermap of migration-related deaths. At that time, no official source recorded deaths linked to migration. This pioneering work was based on data from the Dutch organization UNITED against Racism and the Association of Friends and Families of Victims of Clandestine Immigration (AFVIC). The map marked a turning point, shifting the perspective from isolated incidents to a geographic and systemic analysis. It made visible a fragmented reality, exposing the relentless territorial logic of border repression. The map demonstrated that these deaths were not isolated accidents but the result of a system revealed through key locations: the Strait of Gibraltar, the Strait of Sicily, the Otranto Channel, the Aegean Sea, and more. From 2004 onwards, Olivier Clochard enriched the mapin collaboration with Le Monde diplomatique, granting it unprecedented visibility and transforming it into a major political tool.

Over time, new data sources emerged. First, the remarkable work of Italian journalist Gabriele Del Grande, who documented these often-overlooked tragedies on his blog Fortress Europe. Then, in 2014, the data journalism project The Migrant’s File gained prominence through its meticulous fact-checking. Today, much of the data comes from the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants project, contributing to a more precise and comprehensive mapping effort.

Thanks to these evolving data sources, Migreurop updated the "map of deaths" multiple times—in 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2017. With each update, the geography of migration boundaries became clearer, more structured, and more detailed, as control measures intensified. Yet, far from deterring migration, these measures merely redirected migration routes, making them ever more dangerous. It must be stated unequivocally: these cruel and ineffective migration policies are directly responsible for this silent catastrophe. In this article, continuing the work of the Migreurop network, we present an updated version of this map, using the same design principles. The chosen time frame spans 1993–2024, though it can be adjusted as needed.

Please note: due to the amount of data processed, the map may take a few tens of seconds to display or update. See the map in English.