The number of migrants and refugees reaching Europe by sea has fallen significantly this year, but more people have died or gone missing while attempting the increasingly dangerous journeys, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Thursday.

Nearly 60,000 migrants and refugees had reached European shores by sea as of Sept 15, down almost 40 percent from the same period last year, according to the UN migration agency.

However, nearly 2,300 people died or went missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea or the Atlantic Ocean this year, compared with nearly 2,000 during the corresponding period in 2025.

“Nearly every death and disappearance at sea is preventable,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said, urging authorities to strengthen international cooperation to save lives, tackle human trafficking and create legal pathways for migration.

The Central Mediterranean route to Italy recorded the sharpest decline in arrivals, with more than 21,000 reaching Italy this year, compared with over 48,000 during the same period last year.

Despite the decline, deaths on the route rose to 996 this year from 844 during the corresponding period last year.

Since taking office in 2022, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made reducing irregular migration a key priority, including through agreements with North African countries such as Tunisia and Libya and measures targeting humanitarian groups involved in migrant rescues in the Mediterranean.

In Greece, migrant arrivals fell by around 5,000, while deaths increased by 47 percent, according to IOM.

The agency attributed part of the increase to more migrants attempting to reach the Greek island of Crete from eastern Libya, a longer and more hazardous sea route than the Aegean crossing from Turkey.

Deaths on migration routes to Spain also remained high despite an overall decline in arrivals. The routes include the dangerous Atlantic crossing from West Africa to the Canary Islands.

At least 97 people died on the Spanish side of the border with Morocco during the July 30-31 Ceuta border crisis alone, according to IOM.

The agency warned that the actual death toll is likely to be significantly higher, as many shipwrecks and disappearances cannot be confirmed and remain unrecorded.

The AP has reported that authorities have become increasingly less transparent about incidents involving migrants at sea, making it difficult to establish the full scale of deaths and disappearances.