Despite incredibly low numbers arriving to Italy, the per capita death or the rate of death per 1,000 people may be at its highest point since the emergency began,” Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said .
He added that some 55,000 refugees had stepped on European soil since January, against more than double that figure at this time last year, around 111,753.
According to the IOM, Spain, which has overtaken Italy as the preferred destination, has registered nearly 21,000 refugees since January, almost more than in the whole of the previous year.
The death rate on the western Mediterranean route to Spain is around one in 70 refugees, he further said.
Italy, whose new government has shut down its ports to rescue vessels, has had around 18,130 refugees arriving through the Mediterranean from Libya this year, with the rest going to Greece, Malta and Cyprus.
Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders said between 5,000 and 7,000 people were held in seven official centers in the Libyan capital Tripoli, which it described as overcrowded and unsanitary, with scabies and tuberculosis common.
There are 17 government detention facilities across Libya amid reports of physical assaults and inhumane conditions in the centers.
