Introduction

For every dead body washed up on the shores of the developed world, experts estimate there are at least two others that are never recovered. Nearly 14,000 people are known to have died between 1993 and 2010 trying to enter Europe, or while in detention or during forcible deportation. Across the three key border zones between the Global North and Global South (Europe, North America and Australia), drowning is by far the most frequent cause of death recorded by non-government organizations (NGOs) and official sources. Corpses frequently wash up on Mediterranean beaches. Other significant causes of death are suffocation, vehicle accidents and suicide. Men, women and children die from hypothermia while attempting to cross the border between Greece and Turkey, of dehydration in the Moroccan desert, or while trying to swim across rivers and bays. The hardships of unregulated modes of transport such as unseaworthy vessels, or unventilated and overcrowded lorries and containers, coupled with inadequate food and water, add to the misery and peril. Drowning is also the most frequent cause of border deaths for those trying to enter Australia, the most notable instances being the sinking of the SIEV X in 2001 and the shipwreck on Christmas Island in December 2010. On the United States (US)-Mexico border, deaths due to environmental exposure in the deserts of California and Arizona together with drownings in the Rio Grande account for a large proportion of those who die, but deaths also occur both before and after people cross borders.

Archaeology · Deportation · Fishery · Frontier · Geography · Immigration · Shore · Socioeconomics · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Health and Conflict Studies · Migration, Health and Trauma

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