The number of people who have drowned in the Mediterranean has increased exponentially this year, with as many as 3,000 migrants dying in search of a better life.
In two separate shipwrecks last week, an estimated 700 people perished, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Monday. The death toll since January is nearly four times that of all of 2013.
[seealso slug="un-syria-refugees-report"]
In one case, according to the IOM, human traffickers on purpose sunk a boat off the coast of Malta that was carrying more than 500 people after the migrants refused to change ships, leaving them to die at sea. The IOM reported 50 to 100 of those who died were children. According to testimony from four of the only six survivors, the smugglers began yelling and throwing sticks at people in the boat, and then rammed it until it sunk.
"They were laughing," one of the survivors said, according to the IOM.
The photographs below illustrate the perilous journey that these migrants undertake as they try to cross from Africa to Europe.
Editors' note: Some of the images are graphic.
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