UNHCR launches new platform to analyse complex journeys across key routes

GENEVA – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has launched the Routes Monitor, a new data platform offering the most comprehensive picture to date of mixed movements across and along major global routes.

Updated monthly, the platform brings together multiple sources of information – including from UNHCR, national authorities, UN and NGO partners, and media and social media monitoring – to show evolving trends, highlight protection needs and support more effective responses along entire journeys. This will help provide better protection and solutions where people are, offering alternatives to dangerous journeys.

With a focus on protecting people at risk, the platform helps analyse today’s increasingly complex movements, where refugees fleeing conflict or persecution often move alongside people travelling for different reasons. Additional routes or route segments will be added progressively.

“This tool gives us a unique, comparative view of movements from across countries and regions,” said Elizabeth Tan, UNHCR’s Director of the Division of Protection and Solutions. “It helps us identify patterns and shifts in trends along routes, supporting more coordinated responses that prioritize safety and solutions.”

Overall, 2025 data show that there have been nearly 200,000 recorded departures and more than 151,000 arrivals along monitored routes, including across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Although routes through the Mediterranean currently have more recorded data due to established monitoring systems, they represent only one part of a wider landscape. Movements along the Western Africa–Atlantic corridor and across the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea also continue, though visibility varies where access and reporting remain limited.

The Routes Monitor platform aims to progressively make information from different routes easier to access and compare, helping to close existing gaps.

The recorded figure on deaths and disappearances at sea – more than 2,600 people in 2025 across the routes monitored – is likely to be an underestimate of the full human cost, given that many incidents occur in remote maritime areas where reporting and verification are limited.

UNHCR notes that decreases in recorded arrivals often reflect tightened border controls or enforcement measures. “Fewer arrivals do not mean fewer people are fleeing danger,” Tan added. “Restrictions may limit onward movement, but they also push people into more remote, risky routes. The drivers of displacement remain strong, and protection needs remain urgent, requiring immediate and joined-up action.”

The Routes Monitor is designed to support analysis by practitioners – including States, UN and NGO partners, refugee-led organizations, and academia – to inform advocacy efforts and responses, and improve protection and safety for people forced to flee.

For more information, visit the Routes Monitor.

For more information, please contact:

• In Geneva, Matthew Saltmarsh: [email protected], +41 79 967 99 36
• In Geneva, Carlotta Wolf: [email protected], +41 79 546 67 07