World

GENEVA — More than 72,000 deaths and disappearances have been documented along migration routes around the world in the past decade, most of them in crisis-affected countries, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Last year saw the highest migrant death toll on record, with at least 8,938 people dying on migration routes, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

"These numbers are a tragic reminder that people risk their lives when insecurity, lack of opportunity, and other pressures leave them with no safe or viable options at home," IOM chief Amy Pope said in a statement.

The report by her UN agency found that nearly three-quarters of all migrant deaths and disappearances recorded globally since 2014 occurred as people fled insecurity, conflict, disaster and other humanitarian crises.

One in four were "from countries affected by humanitarian crises, with the deaths of thousands of Afghans, Rohingya, and Syrians documented on migration routes worldwide", said the IOM's Missing Migrants Report.

The report said that more than 52,000 people died while trying to escape from one of the 40 countries in the world where the UN has a crisis response plan or humanitarian response plan in place.

Pope urged international investment "to create stability and opportunity within communities, so that migration is a choice, not a necessity".

"And when staying is no longer possible, we must work together to enable safe, legal, and orderly pathways that protect lives."

The Central Mediterranean remains the deadliest migration route in the world, with nearly 25,000 people lost at sea in the past decade, IOM said.

More than 12,000 of those had been lost at sea after departing from war-torn Libya, with countless others disappearing while transiting the Sahara Desert, the report said.

More than 5,000 people died while trying to leave crisis-ravaged Afghanistan in the past decade, many of them since the Taliban retook power in 2021.

And more than 3,100 members of Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya minority had died during the period, many in shipwrecks or while crossing into Bangladesh.

"Too often, migrants fall through the cracks," warned Julia Black, coordinator of IOM's Missing Migrants Project and author of the report.

"And due to data gaps - especially in war zones and disaster areas - the true death toll is likely far higher than what we've recorded," she said in the statement.

WASHINGTON — The United States has lost seven multi-million-dollar MQ-9 Reaper drones in the Yemen area since March 15, a US official said Monday, as the Navy announced a costly warplane fell off an aircraft carrier into the Red Sea.

Washington launched the latest round of its air campaign against Yemen's Houthis in mid-March, and MQ-9s can be used for both reconnaissance, a key aspect of US efforts to identify and target weaponry the rebels are using to attack shipping in the region, as well as strikes.

"There have been seven MQ-9s that have gone down since March 15," the US official said on condition of anonymity, without specifying what caused the loss of the drones, which cost around $30 million apiece.

The US Navy meanwhile announced the loss of another piece of expensive military equipment: an F/A-18E warplane that fell off the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in an accident that injured one sailor.

A tractor that was towing the F/A-18E, a type of aircraft that cost more than $67 million in 2021, also slipped off the ship into the sea.

"The F/A-18E was actively under tow in the hangar bay when the move crew lost control of the aircraft. The aircraft and tow tractor were lost overboard," the Navy said in a statement.

The carrier and its other planes remain in action and the incident is under investigation, the Navy added. No details of recovery work were released.

Weeks of heavy strikes
 
It is the second F/A-18 operating off the Truman to be lost in less than six months, after another was mistakenly shot down by the USS Gettysburg guided missile cruiser late last year in incident that both pilots survived.

The Truman is one of two US aircraft carriers operating in the Middle East, where US forces have been striking the Houthis on a near-daily basis since March 15.

The military's Central Command said Sunday that US forces have struck more than 800 targets and killed hundreds of Houthi fighters, including members of the group's leadership, as part of the operation.

The Iran-backed Houthis began targeting shipping in late 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by a military campaign launched by Israel after a shock Hamas surprise attack in October of that year.

Houthi attacks have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal, a vital route that normally carries about 12 per cent of the world's shipping traffic, forcing many companies into a costly detour around the tip of southern Africa.

The United States first began conducting strikes against the Houthis under the Biden administration, and President Donald Trump has vowed that military action against the rebels will continue until they are no longer a threat to shipping.

MADRID — A massive blackout hit Spain, Portugal and part of southern France on Monday, grid operators said, leaving millions of people impacted.

The cause for the outage was not immediately reported.

Spain's railway operator Adif said that the power cut halted trains across the entire country, while airports operator Aena said "several incidents" occurred in Spanish airports.

Mobile phone networks went down. AFP reporters in Madrid and Barcelona saw many inhabitants coming out into the streets, holding their smart phones up to try to connect to a network.

Many people had to use the radio instead of the inaccessible internet to get news on the situation.

Many traffic lights had ceased to function, forcing vehicles to slow to avoid collisions, while metros and trains were halted. Spain's national road authority DGT urged motorists to stop using the roads.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was on his way to the headquarters of the state electricity network operator Red Electrica to be briefed on the emergency, his office said.

Portugal's REN operator said in a statement to AFP that all the Iberian Peninsula was affected by the blackout, as well as part of France, adding that the outage occurred at 11:33 am.

Spain's Red Electrica said it had managed to start restoring power in the north and south of the country but the problem was not yet resolved.

"We are continuing to work to bring back power," it said.

Spain's El Pais newspaper posted photos on its website of stopped metro trains in Madrid, police directing traffic, and its own reporters working in a darkened office by the torchlight.