Idos, landings and asylum seekers are decreasing but deaths and violence are increasing

Irregular entries into Europe, including landings, and asylum requests are decreasing. But the deaths, the deprivation of human rights, the pending applications for protection, the hostility towards those who save migrants from death at sea are increasing. This is the context in which "year zero" of the new EU Pact on migration and asylum takes place, the set of rules that have applied since 12 June, "partly inspired by twenty years of Italian policies". This is what is contained in the Immigration Statistical Dossier created by the Idos Study and Research Center in collaboration with the Confronti Study Center and the "S. Pio V" Institute of Political Studies. The 2026 edition, the 36th, will be presented on 27 October in Rome and, at the same time, in all Italian regions with local insights. The 512-page volume consists of 98 chapters and a statistical appendix written by 148 authors.

Fewer arrivals, but more deaths in the Mediterranean But what is behind these reductions? A real reduction in the need for protection or its (forced) containment? An answer, according to the dossier, comes from the comparison between the decline in arrivals by sea in the first eight months of 2026 (just over 51 thousand throughout the Mediterranean against 86 thousand in the same period of 2025) and the increase in deaths confirmed during the crossing (1,733 from January to August 2026 against 1,248 in the same period of 2025). On the central Mediterranean route alone, 914 people lost their lives, compared to 827 last year (+11%).

The contribution of SOS Mediterranee Italia to the Dossier reconstructs a decade of hostility and compression of civil relief. For SOS Mediterranee the loss of lives "is not a fatality, but the result of precise political choices".

From what emerges from the Dossier in the Pact we find "the Italian matrix" in the externalization of borders experimented by our country in about twenty years of agreements with North African countries. The first agreement with Tunisia dates back to 1998, followed by the 2020 agreements and then by the 2023 Memorandum with the EU. The agreement with Libya made it possible, between 2017 and 2025, to intercept 192,788 people on the move in the Mediterranean and return them to detention facilities. "The numbers give a much more complex picture than that represented by emergency and security rhetoric, but they do not seem to have an impact - it is underlined - either on policies or on public debate. An even more serious circumstance, given such a significant humanitarian impact".