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MMP data aims to bear witness to the global phenomenon of migrant deaths and is the only global database on this topic. 

The MMP data include migrants (regardless of legal status) who have died at the external borders of States or in the process of migration towards an international destination. This selection of data is based on the currently available sources and can provide some insight into the safety or otherwise of routes. Not included in the data collection is information about migrants who die, or go missing, in countries of destination or residence. Deaths in refugee housing, immigration detention centres or camps are excluded. The MMP data also exclude deaths that occur during deportation or after forced return to a migrant’s homeland or a third country, as well as deaths more loosely connected with migrants’ precarious or irregular status, such as those resulting from labour exploitation or resulting from lack of access to health care. 

Immigration Department

Immigration Department

Annual

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Migrant - An umbrella term, not defined under international law, reflecting the common lay understanding of a person who moves away from his or her place of usual residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons. The term includes a number of well-defined legal categories of people, such as migrant workers; persons whose particular types of movements are legally-defined, such as smuggled migrants; as well as those whose status or means of movement are not specifically defined under international law, such as international students. 

Irregular migration - Movement of persons that takes place outside the laws, regulations, or international agreements governing the entry into or exit from the State of origin, transit or destination. 
 

can be by the date of the incident, the number of dead and/or the number of missing, and the location of death. 

MMP is an incident-based database, meaning that each entry in the database represents a single occurrence in which an individual or group of individuals die during the migration or at international borders in one particular place and time. This approach is used instead of a body-based database due to the fact that many migrant bodies are never recovered, particularly in overseas routes such as the Mediterranean Sea, or remote terrains such as the Sahara Desert. 

The MMP database provides a global overview of data on migrant fatalities, but it is primarily dependent on secondary sources of information. Information is gathered from diverse sources such as official records – including from coast guards and medical examiners – and other sources such as media reports, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and surveys and interviews of migrants. The reliability and completeness of data vary greatly from region to region, from country to country and over time. 

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All the metadata shown above was gathered from the United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.