News of the grim 2014 death toll comes as the Italian navy winds down its Mare Nostrum rescue mission
The Mediterranean crossing from African to Europe was described as “the most lethal route in the world” by the UN agency for refugees on Wednesday, after it announced a record 3,419 migrants had lost their lives this year crossing the sea on rickety boats.
News of the grim 2014 death toll comes as the Italian navy winds down its Mare Nostrum rescue mission, which in the past 12 months has saved 150,000 people fleeing poverty and war zones on the African continent.
Instead, Europe’s border protection agency Frontex has launched the Triton operation to rescue migrants in danger. But this has resources of just €3m (£2.4m) a month – a third of what the Italian Navy has been spending in the past year.
Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, seized on the record death toll to condemn rich nations for what he saw as their indifference to waves of global migration.
“The lack of concern that we see in many countries for the suffering and exploitation of such desperate people is deeply shocking,” he said, at the start of a major conference on migration in Geneva. He added: “Rich countries must not become gated communities, their people averting their eyes from the bloodstains in the driveway.”
In pictures: Global refugee crisis
Yemeni refugees
Yemeni refugees carry water to their tent at the Mazraq internally displaced people's camp in the northwestern province of Hajja Yemeni refugees
A displaced man from Yemen's Saada province amid UNHCR tents at a camp set up by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Mazraq in Yemen's Hajja region, 360 kms northwest of Sanaa Yemeni refugees
Yemeni refugees queue to get food aid at the Marzaq internally displaced people's camp in Harad in the northwestern province of Hajjah Yemeni refugees
Displaced Yemenis from al-Jaachan Al-Ansin, a village in the province of Ibb, some 200km South-East of Sanaa, stand next to their tents in a makeshift refugee camp in Sanaa Yemeni refugees
Yemeni refugees walk to a refugee camp in the southern Saudi province of Jizan after crossing the border from Yemen into Saudi ArabiaSyrian refugees
Syrian refugees arrive in Turkey at the Cilvegozu crossing gate of Reyhanli, in Hatay. The number of people driven from their homes by conflict and crisis has topped 50 million for the first time since World War II, with Syrians hardest hit, the UN refugee agency (UNCHR) said, in an annual report released on World Refugee DaySyrian refugees
Syrian refugees walking among tents at Karkamis' refugee camp near the town of Gaziantep, south of TurkeySudanese refugees
South Sudanese refugees waiting for food in the Kule refugee camp near the Pagak Border Entry point in the Gambella Region, Ethiopia African refugees
African refugees live homelessly at a temporary shelter beside a road on World Refugee Day in Sana'a, Yemen. The number of African refugees who have come to Yemen during the past few years has reached 750,000, most of them are Somalis Iraqi refugees
An Iraqi refugee girl from Mosul stands outside her family's tent at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq. The militants' capture of Iraq's cities of Mosul and Tikrit makes their dream of a new Islamic state look more realistic. It already controlled a swath of eastern Syria along the Euphrates River, with a spottier presence extending further west nearly to Aleppo, Syria's largest city. In Raqqa, the biggest city it holds in Syria, it imposes taxes, rebuilds bridges and enforces the law - its strict version of Shariah Iraqi refugees
Refugees queue to register at a temporary camp in northern Iraq Getty ImagesSyrian refugees
A young Syrian refugee stands near jerry cans used to collect water at Al-Zaatri refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria. The United Nations hopes that political talks between the warring sides in Syria will clinch local ceasefires to allow vital food and medicines to reach millions of civiliansSyrian refugees
A child refugee from the northern province of Raqqa in Syria, reacts from the cold weather in a Syrian refugee camp beside the Lebanese border town of Arsal, in eastern Bekaa Valley ReutersSyrian refugees
Boys help their father remove snow in front of their tent in the Azaz refugee campSyrian refugees
A Syrian refugee family from Aleppo crosses the Bosphorus from Uskudar to the European side of IstanbulSyrian refugees
A child refugee stands next to a home constructed using a billboard in the settlement of Qab Elias in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon PASyrian refugees
Refugee baby Rim in the settlement of Qab Elias in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon PAAfrican refugees
Refugees arriving at a camp near Bossangoa, 190 miles north of Bangui, the capital. Forty-one thousand people fled their homes following mass executions in the area Juan Carlos Tomasi/Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without BordersSyrian refugees
Representatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a deeply divided opposition, world powers and regional bodies started a long-delayed peace conference aimed at bringing an end to a nearly three-year civil warIraqi refugees
A women and a girl wash at a tap at a temporary displacement camp set up next to a Kurdish checkpoint in Kalak. Thousands of people have fled Iraq's second city of Mosul after it was overrun by Isis (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) militants. Many have been temporarily housed at various IDP (internally displaced persons) camps around the region including the area close to Erbil, as they hope to enter the safety of the nearby Kurdish region Iraqi refugees
Families arrive at a Kurdish checkpoint next to a temporary displacement camp in Kalak Iraqi refugees
An Iraqi refugee girl from Mosul stands outside her family's tent at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq. Days after Iraq's second-largest city fell to Isis fighters, some Iraqis are already returning to Mosul, lured back by insurgents offering cheap gas and food, restoring power and water and removing traffic barricadesIraqi refugees
A girl, who fled from the violence in Mosul, carries a case of water at a camp on the outskirts of Arbil in Iraq's Kurdistan regionIraqi refugees
A displaced Iraqi woman washes her family's laundry as the children shower outside their tent at a temporary camp set up to shelter civilians fleeing violence in Iraq's northern Nineveh province in Aski kalak, 40 kms west of the Kurdish autonomous region's capital ArbilIraqi refugees
Iraqi refugees from Mosul arrive at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad APSudanese refugees
The international Red Cross said that the road from Bor to the nearby Awerial area 'is lined with thousands of people' waiting for boats so they could cross the Nile River and that the gathering of displaced 'is the largest single identified concentration of displaced people in the country so far'Sudanese refugees
People unload the few belongings at Minkammen, that they were able to bring with them to the campsSudanese refugees
Thousands of exhausted civilians are crowding into the fishing village of Minkammen, a once-tiny riverbank settlement of a few thatch huts 25 kilometres (20 miles) southwest of BorSudanese refugees
Many people had spent days hiding out in the bush outside Bor as gunmen battled for control of the town, which has exchanged hands three times in the conflict, and remains in rebel controlSudanese refugees
A young boy pulls his suitcase of belongings as he walks to find a place to rest after getting off a river barge from BorSudanese refugees
A displaced family camp under a tree providing partial shade from the midday sunSudanese refugees
A boy carries a fish, caught from the nearby Nile river, in a cardboard box on his head back to his relatives to eatSudanese refugees
A mother and her baby, one of the few to have a mosquito net, wake up in the morning after sleeping in the openSudanese refugees
Four-month old Haida Majzub was born in the Ajuong Thok refugee camp inside South Sudan. The camp, in northern Unity State, hosts thousands of refugees from the Nuba Mountains, located across the nearby border with SudanSudanese refugees
A girl fills a container with muddy water in the Ajuong Thok Refugee CampSudanese refugees
The clashes in South Sudan began when uniformed personnel opened fire at a meeting of the governing party, the Sudan People's Liberation MovementMyanmar refugees
45 year old Dilbhar looks towards the camera as she stands in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district. She escaped to Bangladesh from the Bodchara village in the Mondu district of MyanmarMyanmar refugees
32 year old Mahada Khatum, 5 year old Hasan Sharif, and 9 year old Umma Kulsum sit outside their home in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district. The family escaped violence and discrimination from the Zomgara Baharchara village in the Meherulla district of MyanmarMyanmar refugees
Hamid and his daughter Rajama sit inside their home in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district. They fled to Bangladesh from the Dhuachopara village in the Rachidhong district of MyanmarAfghan refugees
Afghan children wait for relief supplies from the Muslim Hands United For The Needy during an aid distribution at a refugee camp on the outskirts of KabulAfghan refugees
Afghan people carry relief supplies received from the Muslim Hands United For The Needy during an aid distribution at a refugee camp on the outskirts of KabulTo the anger of campaign groups the British Government has said it will not support future search and rescue operations beyond supplying a technical expert to Triton, claiming such missions simply encourage more migrants to make the journey.
Britain’s position was echoed yesterday by Matteo Salvini, the head of Italy’s right-wing Northern League party, which has surged in the polls on its anti-immigration ticket. “The 3,419 deaths in the Mediterranean are on the conscience of those who wanted operation Mare Nostrum,” said Mr Salvini at the Foreign Press Association in Rome.
But Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, dismissed this argument. “If entire families are risking their lives at sea today, it’s because they have already lost everything else and see no other option to find safety,” he said. All told, a record 348,000 migrants and refugees attempted risky sea crossings this year in search of a better life in Europe, South-east Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East, 4,272 of them dying in the process, according to the UN refugee agency.
Most of those crossing the Mediterranean headed to Italy first, and the country has rescued more than 150,000 people so far this year. Italy set up its Mare Nostrum rescue mission in 2013 to reduce the death toll, following two migrant disasters in October that year. Mare Nostrum officially ends on 31 December, although the Italian navy has indicated it intends to continue rescue missions.
Meanwhile, the exodus from Africa and Asia continues. A total of 408 migrants, mainly Syrians, have been rescued after spending six days adrift on a boat in the Mediterranean, Spanish officials said. The migrant craft was intercepted by a Spanish oceanographic vessel on Tuesday about 150 nautical miles east of the Sicilian port of Augusta.