More than 29,000 migrants have died trying to reach Europe since 2014, with 5,000 deaths in the last two years, the International Organization for Migration said in a report.

The UN agency's Missing Migrants Project spoke of "increasing numbers of deaths seen on routes across the Mediterranean, on land borders to Europe and within the continent.''

According to the report, the deadliest migration route continues to be the Central Mediterranean, where 2,836 people have died since January 2021 attempting to reach Italy or Malta, mainly from Libya and Tunisia.

The second-deadliest path was the Atlantic route from West Africa to Spain's Canary Islands, where more than 1,500 deaths were recorded. Rising numbers of deaths also were observed in other areas that border Europe, as well as in Greece, the Western Balkans and the English Channel. (AP)