A global total of 348,000 migrants have embarked upon dangerous sea journeys to escape conflicts or economic hardship so far this year, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said Wednesday. Nearly 4,300 of them have died during those journeys, the Geneva-based body said, meaning that boat migrants face a more-than-1-per-cent chance of losing their lives during sea crossing. In the Mediterranean - which, in the wake of conflicts in Syria, the Gaza Strip, Iraq and Libya, has become the most popular sea route for asylum seekers and other migrants - there were 207,000 crossings. According to dpa, the figure is three times as high as the previous known record of 70,000 recorded in 2011 at the height of the Libyan crisis. There was also a record number of reported deaths that year - 3,400.
