HUMANITARIAN funds to support migrants in the Americas “simply aren't there,” says the United Nations.

This comes as the UN refugee agency reported that nearly 200,000 migrants and refugees arrived in southern Europe so far this year.

International Organisation for Migration deputy director of operations Ugochi Daniels said that a larger and co-ordinated regional effort is necessary for a longer-term solution to the steady movement of vulnerable people toward the United States.

But other global crises, in particular the war in Ukraine, have diverted funds away from humanitarian support.

The UN estimated this year that it needed $55.2 billion (£45.2bn) to take on compounding global crises, but it received funds for only 71 per cent of that.

A growing number of countries like Panama and Costa Rica are pleading for international aid in handling the flood of migrants.

Ms Daniels said: “Obviously, it’s not an issue that can be solved by any one country. 

“The unprecedented flows in the region require attention — international attention.”

In 2017, US authorities stopped migrants 310,531 times on the border, while in the first 11 months in fiscal year 2023, they recorded more than 1.8 million stops.

In September, a UN report said that $400 million (£328.3m) was required to address the migration, but that the international body had received only a third of that.

“Aid dollars are clearly insufficient,” Human Rights Watch deputy director of the Americas Juan Pappier said. “But it’s also a reflexion of the insufficient attention that Latin America gets.”

But the rise in migration is not restricted to the Americas.

The UN refugee agency said on Thursday that some 186,000 migrants and refugees arrived in southern Europe so far this year, the vast majority in Italy.

Between January and September 24, more than 2,500 people seeking to cross the Mediterranean were found dead or are still missing, a significant increase from the 1,680 people who died or were missing during the same period in 2022, Ruven Menikdiwela, director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told the UN security council.

The UNHCR estimates that more than 102,000 refugees and migrants from Tunisia — a 260 per cent increase from last year — and more than 45,000 from Libya tried to cross the central Mediterranean to Europe between January and August, she said.

Some 31,000 people were rescued at sea or intercepted, and disembarked in Tunisia while 10,600 disembarked in Libya, Ms Menikdiwela said.