The migrants reportedly left Moussoro, a crossroads town in West-Central Chad, 17 months ago in a pickup truck, the IOM said in a statement.<\/p>\n
It is believed the truck got lost in the deep desert, broke down due to mechanical issues, and the migrants died of thirst, said the IOM.<\/p>\n
“We are deeply saddened by this most recent tragedy and extend our heartfelt condolences to the migrants’ families,” said Anne Kathrin Schaefer, IOM Chad Chief of Mission.<\/p>\n
“We need stronger collective action to prevent further deaths.”<\/p>\n
Chad, at the crossroads of North and Central Africa, currently hosts about 300,000 refugees in 17 refugee camps and 160,000 internally displaced persons in the eastern and southern parts of the country.<\/p>\n
The forced migration has been caused mainly by conflict and general insecurity in western Sudan, eastern Chad, and parts of the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n
According to the IOM, food insecurity, failed harvests, and inconsistent rains have impacted migration patterns.<\/p>\n
The IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has documented the deaths and disappearances of more than 5,600 people transiting through the Sahara Desert since 2014, with 149 deaths recorded in 2022.<\/p>\n
Since 2014, 110 migrant deaths have been recorded within Chad, including this latest incident.<\/p>\n
But these numbers are likely higher, as many migrant deaths go unrecorded, leaving families worried and without answers about their loved ones, said the IOM.<\/p>\n
In June, the bodies of 20 Chadians and Libyans were found in the Libyan desert in Koufra, a town located along the Chad-Libya border.<\/p>\n
“Without access to reliable information and safe migration pathways, migrants will continue to take risky roads through the deep and perilous desert, with tragic consequences,” said the IOM’s Schaefer.<\/p>\n
Strong coordination and comprehensive support are needed to enable search and rescue operations and provide humanitarian assistance and protection in highly remote areas.<\/p>\n
“This tragedy occurring on the dawn of International Migrants’ Day (Dec. 18) should be a wake-up call for us all to act more decisively to prevent migrant deaths along dangerous irregular migration routes,” said Schaefer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA (AA): The International Organization for Migration said Tuesday it was \u201cdeeply shocked and saddened\u201d by the recent discovery of the bodies of 27 migrants, including four children, in the Chadian desert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":58725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[414],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iumsonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iumsonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iumsonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iumsonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iumsonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iumsonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iumsonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iumsonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iumsonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}