Visualizing Deaths of Migrants at Borders

🌍 View Live Application

About

An interactive data visualization of migrant deaths at borders worldwide. This project started as a group project at the University of Helsinki in 2022 between Citlali Trigos-Raczkowski and Sebastian Rodriguez-Beltran.

The visualization uses data from the Missing Migrants Project, which tracks migrant deaths and disappearances worldwide since 2014. The dataset currently includes over 21,000 documented incidents through 2026, with details about location, cause of death, time period, and circumstances when available.

The map allows you to filter by geographic region, migration route, cause of death, and time period. These are minimum estimates as many incidents go unreported.

Technology Stack

This application is built and deployed using Streamlit. The project is written in Python, with exploratory data analysis documented in Jupyter notebooks (available in the exploration folder).

Key Libraries

• Streamlit - Web application framework
• Pandas - Data manipulation and analysis
• Plotly - Interactive visualizations and maps
• Altair - Declarative statistical visualization
• millify - Number formatting (1220098 → 1,220,098)

Data Sources

• CSV data from the Missing Migrants Project
• Additional recent data gathered via the Twitter API (accessible through the Twitter page of the application)

Running Locally

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10 or higher
• pip or conda for package management

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/citrigos/missing-migrants.git
cd missing-migrants

2. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Or using conda:

conda create -n migrant-viz python=3.10
conda activate migrant-viz
pip install -r requirements.txt

Running the Application

From the project root directory, run:

streamlit run src/Home.py

The application will start and you'll see output similar to:

You can now view your Streamlit app in your browser.

Local URL: http://localhost:8501
Network URL: http://192.168.101.106:8501

Open the Local URL in your browser to view the application.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project uses data from the Missing Migrants Project by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Acknowledgments

• International Organization for Migration's Missing Migrants Project for providing comprehensive data
• University of Helsinki for supporting the initial development of this project