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UNITED NATIONS, May 31 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that at least 880 people died the previous week trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea toward Europe, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Tuesday.
In that regard, "2016 proves to be a particularly deadly year for migrants and refugees using the Mediterranean route": so far 2,510 people lost their lives compared to 1,855 during the same period in 2015, and only 57 in 2014, Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.
The North Africa-Italy route is reported to be considerably more dangerous than the other Mediterranean routes: 2,119 of the deaths reported thus far in 2016 had been among people making that journey, he said.
"According to some unconfirmed accounts, the recent increase in fatality numbers is linked to efforts by smugglers to maximize income before the start of the holy month of Ramadan, in the coming week," he said.
On Sunday, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that at least 700 migrants may have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe after hundreds of others were missing after their boats capsized in the waters.
UNHCR said that several shipwrecks had taken place over the weekend as migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea in flimsy vessels.
The latest drownings, which pushed the death toll for the year to more than 2,000 people, reportedly originated from human trafficking along the North African coastline.
Taking advantage of calm conditions, smugglers in Libya send out more and more migrants toward Italy, often on unseaworthy vessels. Drowning deaths are inevitable, even as Italian Coast Guard and Navy ships race to answer distress calls. Last year, more than 3,700 migrants died in the Mediterranean, a figure that could be surpassed this year.
In a statement on Sunday, the United Nations Children's Fund said many of the migrants who drowned in the past week were believed to be unaccompanied adolescents.