Indonesian leader says locked gates contributed to deaths of more than 130 asylum seekers who drowned in 2015
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June 10, 2016 at 6:27 pm
THE death toll of the world’s deadliest human-smuggling syndicates has nearly doubled in four years, now over 130 and believed to be the highest number of dead since records began.
The death toll from illegal maritime migration, also known as human trafficking, has reached the highest-ever total, with an estimated 132 people killed in the past two years, according to research by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Among the dead are many of the victims of the Golden Triangle — a triangle that includes Vietnam, China and Indonesia, and was once home to the largest network of smuggling routes in the world.
The IOM, which carried out the study, said more than 9,000 people were trafficked to the Americas last year, making it the third most-trafficked destination in the world and the world’s deadliest.
The report also shows the number of victims has reached its highest levels since records began in 2014. The death toll of more than 130, including people drowned in the sea or in makeshift rafts, reached the highest number since records began in 1994.
The latest figures were released a day before the UN human rights chief said the human-smuggling networks had come back to haunt the world by sending refugees back to their “previously safe countries”, including one of the world’s most popular, the United States.
“The world, sadly, is still not safe for people fleeing violence, poverty, and persecution,” Naderev, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement on Tuesday.
He also said an estimated 2.6 million people were in need of international protection “and the only way to protect them is to stop illegal migration, including by stopping people smuggling”.
The report, named Human Slaughter and Slaughter at Sea, says the main source for the world’s illegal human-smuggling network was the Golden Triangle. It notes that the country with the largest human-smuggling network was Vietnam, which is now part of the Golden Triangle with Laos and Myanmar.