GENEVA: Nearly 3,000 migrants and refugees have perished in the Mediterranean Sea already this year while almost 250,000 have reached Europe, the International Organization for Migration said on Friday. The estimated death toll could put 2016 on track to be the deadliest year of the migration crisis. Last year the same landmark was only reached in October, by which time nearly one million people had crossed into Europe. “This is the earliest that we have seen the 3,000 (deaths) mark, this occurred in September of 2014 and October of 2015,” IOM spokesman Joel Millman told a briefing. “So for this to be happening even before the end of July is quite alarming.” Three out of four victims this year died while trying to reach Italy from North Africa, mostly Libya, a longer and more dangerous route. The others drowned between Turkey and Greece before that flow dried up with the March deal on migrants between Turkey and the European Union. Nearly 2,500 fatalities have occurred since late March, with about 20 migrants dying each day along the route from Libya to Italy, Millman said. Most are from West Africa and the Horn of Africa, although they may include people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Morocco. “The (Libyan) coast guard has had some luck turning back voyages from Libya. We’ve heard in the last six weeks a number of cases where they have been able to turn boats back. “They (have also been) recovering bodies at an alarming rate,” Millman said. Some 84,052 migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy so far this year, almost exactly the same number as in the same period a year before, he said. That indicated departures from Libya were at “maximum capacity” due to a limited number of boats deemed seaworthy. But there is “a very robust market of used fishing vessels and things coming from Tunisia and Egypt that are finding their way to brokers in Tripoli,” Millman said. “And you can actually go to shipyards where people are trying to repair boats as fast as they can to get more migrants on the sea.” Migrants in Libya are often held in detention centres, some run by criminal gangs and militias, he said. IOM officials seek access to detainees and authorisation for their repatriation. “There’s no question that in some of this range of detention (centres) there are people in league with smugglers who are moving people towards the smugglers,” Millman said. Meanwhile, horror stories emerged Friday of the death of 22 migrants who drowned after they were crushed underfoot in a dinghy in the Mediterranean when panic broke out on board. Red Cross workers held roses and stood in silence on the portside in Trapani, Sicily, as the bodies of 21 women and a man were carried off a rescue ship, placed in wooden coffins and loaded into hearses. The crew of the MS Aquarius, chartered by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and French NGO SOS Mediterranee, discovered the dead at the bottom of a dinghy when they picked up over 200 migrants on Wednesday. Survivors told MSF the victims had drowned in 30 centimetres (12 inches) of water and fuel. “People were trying not to slip into (the) pool of fuel/water in (the) middle of (the) dinghy, but when they moved to the sides more water came in,” a survivor named only as David was quoted as saying on MSF’s Twitter feed. The overcrowded dinghy was deflating on one side. Those aboard began trying to bail out the water, which rose quickly to knee high. “Girls sitting down in centre started to panic, tried to get up,” he said. “The bodies were on the floor under water, we were shouting and praying to be rescued.” MSF said many of the 209 survivors were crying as they disembarked, and the charity was offering psychological support.