The photograph of two-year-old Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body on a Turkish beach in September 2015 became a global symbol of the human cost of irregular migration. Ten years on, arrivals across Mediterranean and Atlantic routes continue and thousands more have died or gone missing despite a decade of European policy shifts, funding and bilateral deals intended to curb crossings.
International agencies and rights groups say recorded deaths and disappearances remain high and are likely undercounts. UNICEF estimates that around 3,500 children have died trying to reach Europe since Alan Kurdi’s death, a figure supported by the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project. The IOM says that since 2015 more than 34,000 people have died or gone missing attempting the journey to Europe.
Major single incidents over the past decade illustrate the scale of the toll. In April 2015, a fishing vessel sank off Libya with an estimated 1,000 fatalities. In 2023 a trawler capsized off Pylos, Greece, with an estimated 600 to 650 deaths; in February of that year a shipwreck off Cutro, southern Italy, killed at least 94 people, many of them children. Last month, at least 27 people, including a one-year-old girl and three teenagers, died after two boats capsized off Lampedusa, Italy. Recent reports also point to a capsizing off Mauritania in which 69 people died.
Routes and numbers have shifted but the central Mediterranean remains among the deadliest. European Council figures show more than 1 million irregular arrivals and 4,054 fatalities on Mediterranean and Western African routes in 2015; recorded fatalities numbered 3,711 in 2023 and 3,393 in 2024, with 1,160 deaths reported by June this year. The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford reported 73 Channel deaths in 2024 and said that, as of Aug. 11, 2025, 20 people had died on the Channel route this year.
Smuggling networks have been substantial and adaptable sources of exploitation, law-enforcement agencies say. Europol and national police forces contend criminal gangs have profited from trafficking and smuggling across North Africa, Turkey and the Balkans, repeatedly opening new routes as others are closed. Authorities say smugglers cram migrants into unseaworthy vessels and charge thousands of euros for places on board.
European governments have pursued a range of measures to deter crossings, from bilateral pacts to expanded border enforcement. The 2016 EU-Turkey agreement sought to reduce arrivals on Greek islands by returning irregular migrants to Turkey in exchange for benefits to Ankara; rights groups including Amnesty International condemned the deal as leaving many stranded and undermining asylum rights. The EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum, adopted in 2023, aimed to speed up border processing and returns and to require solidarity among member states, but critics warned it could create expedited procedures that curtail access to asylum.
The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, has expanded capacity and staffing in recent years, with airborne surveillance and increased budgets. The European Ombudsman and human rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about allegations of pushbacks and the prioritisation of deterrence over rescue. UNHCR and IOM have said that restrictions on NGO search-and-rescue operations and port policies that limit disembarkation can increase fatalities rather than discourage departures.
National responses have diverged. Italy’s government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has combined rhetoric about cracking down on irregular migration with arrests of smugglers and new legislation, including Law No. 187/2024, while an offshore processing plan with Albania was struck down by the European Court of Justice for violating asylum rights. Germany stepped up deportations in early 2025, carrying out more than 6,000 returns in the first quarter as authorities tightened border checks and digitalised processes. Spain has introduced a three-year programme to regularise nearly 900,000 undocumented migrants, while the Canary Islands reported more than 10,800 arrivals in the first months of 2025 and local officials urged central assistance.
Britain’s high-profile policy experiment to deter Channel crossings — sending asylum seekers to Rwanda — was ruled unlawful by the UK’s Supreme Court in 2024. The incoming Labour government repealed the Safety of Rwanda Act in January 2025, and later signed a treaty with France that allows for returns of certain arrivals deemed inadmissible.
The policy changes have taken place amid political shifts across Europe. Migration has been a central issue in the rise of right-wing and populist parties and leaders, including Italy’s Brothers of Italy under Meloni, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland gains, Hungary’s continued hardline measures under Viktor Orbán, and strengthened support for parties such as France’s National Rally. Rights groups and analysts say migration policy has become a major driver of public support for these movements.
Humanitarian organisations have continued search-and-rescue and support activity. NGOs including SOS Méditerranée and Sea-Watch say they have saved tens of thousands of lives since 2015, but report operational pressure from seizure of vessels, restricted ports and legal threats in some countries. UN agencies warn that those measures, combined with conflict, repression and extreme poverty in many countries of origin, will continue to push people to attempt dangerous journeys.
Conflicts in Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan and parts of Africa, as well as repression in countries such as Eritrea, remain cited drivers of migration. Experts and agencies have also highlighted climate pressures and economic collapse in regions of West Africa as additional push factors. Return operations face legal and diplomatic limits: Eurostat shows that in 2024 EU countries issued roughly 453,840 return decisions for non-EU nationals but completed only 110,385 returns, with many people left in legal limbo because of obstacles to repatriation.
A decade after the image of Alan Kurdi galvanised public attention, the human cost of irregular migration continues. Recorded deaths and disappearances remain high, agencies say, and policy measures by European states and the EU have so far failed to halt deadly crossings or the networks that profit from them.