The long journey of people on the move along migration routes to Europe does not end with their arrival in the first European country. Most people do not stop and continue their journey to central Europe, northern Europe, or Great Britain.
This often means facing a new obstacle course, with dynamics that are more hidden and organised than those already overcome.
Different asylum and migration laws, often disguised as security measures, create barriers that are difficult to understand and overcome. This can bring the journey to a halt, resulting in marginal living conditions and psychological problems that sometimes push people to seek extreme solutions, such as drug and alcohol addiction, depression, and suicide.
Data on people who are dead and missing crossing Europe are few and fragmentary, especially regarding the Balkan route, where desperate attempts to cross borders drive people to isolated and inaccessible paths.
As both the map and the data collected over the years show, it is at the borders and in attempts to cross the English Channel that people meet their deaths.
Cause of death
While drowning is the main cause of death along the migration route to Europe, in Europe itself, people risk their lives trying to cross borders that are mountain passes, remote forest paths, impassable rivers and lakes, and the fearsome English Channel.
This is one of the reasons why, on average, the percentage of people who are dead compared to those who are missing is 95% versus 5%.
In Europe, the leading cause of death is accidents in transport vehicles, often crammed into lorries or hidden in dangerous compartments on trains, where death occurs through suffocation, freezing or electrocution.