GENEVA — More migrants and refugees are embarking on dangerous journeys across Africa towards the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea where they face growing risk of abuse such as kidnapping and organ theft, a UN-backed report said on Friday (July 5).

The routes crisscrossing the Sahara northwards from West and East Africa are thought to be twice as deadly as the better-documented central Mediterranean sea route where already more than 800 people are thought to have drowned this year, the report said.

Vincent Cochetel, Special Envoy for the Western and Central Mediterranean for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), which co-authored the report based on interviews with more than 30,000 migrants between 2020-2023, said the testimonies showed the living, dead and sick were being abandoned in the desert.

"Every one that has crossed to Sahara can tell you of people they know who died in the desert," he told reporters in Geneva. "We cannot lose our capacity to get outraged by this level of violence along the route. Some of it can be addressed," he added, calling for more protection services and search and rescue missions.

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