Grieving across borders: migrants bereaved of family abroad

For people who have moved to another country, the death of someone close often happens somewhere else, and that changes how they can grieve. No country counts how many migrants are bereaved at a distance. The few studies that measure it mostly link these deaths to more distress, and they show that distance, travel rules and paperwork can keep people from the bedside, the funeral and the rites that matter to them.

For someone living far from where they grew up, news of a death can arrive by phone in the middle of a working day. In the hours that follow there are decisions to make. Is it possible to travel in time for a funeral that, in many traditions, takes place very soon after the death? Will a visa, a residence permit, a border rule or the price of a ticket allow it? Should the body come home, or stay? Many people do this while still at work, in a second language, among colleagues who may not know the person who died or the customs around a death in their family. The same distance runs the other way too: families in countries of origin wait for news, and sometimes for a body, when a relative dies working or travelling abroad.

For first-generation migrants, the death being grieved often happened in another country

Researchers call this a transnational death: someone dies in one country while the person grieving them lives in another. It is a common experience, but almost no data source counts it. Death registers record where a death happened, not where the people who grieve it live, and bereavement surveys rarely ask whether the death was abroad. The clearest measurement we found comes from a 2026 study of 937 adults of Turkish origin in Germany, the largest group among people with a migration background there, at nearly three million people in 2024^[1].

Among participants born in Turkey, 166 of 280 (59%) said the person whose death they were grieving had died in a different country from them. Among their children’s generation, born in Germany, it was 95 of 260 (37%)^[1]. The sample was recruited online and through community organisations, so it is not representative, but it suggests that for people who migrated as adults, grieving at a distance may be the usual way of grieving rather than the exception.

A study of 248 undocumented Mexican immigrants living near the US–Mexico border, recruited through their own social networks, likewise described transnational death as highly prevalent in that group^[4]. Neither study can say how many migrants worldwide are bereaved of family abroad each year, and we found no national statistic anywhere that does.

The few measurements point to more distress, and more prolonged grief, than in the wider population

Grief is a normal response to a death, and most people who grieve at a distance do not develop a mental health condition. A minority do develop prolonged grief disorder, a diagnosis for grief that stays intense and disabling for many months and gets in the way of daily life. The question is whether migrants, and transnational deaths, carry a higher risk. The evidence is small but fairly consistent.

In the Mexican study, experiencing a transnational death was a significant predictor of clinically significant psychological distress after the researchers controlled for other relevant factors^[4]. In the German study, 5.97% of first-generation and 5.45% of second-generation participants met the criteria for prolonged grief disorder. Using the official criteria, the authors put the figure at 5.71%, above the 3.3% to 4.7% found among bereaved people in earlier studies in Germany; they caution that a self-selected sample may overstate it^[1]. In both generations, stronger migratory grief, the sense of loss for the homeland and the life left behind, went with more severe grief symptoms^[1].

Studies of other groups point the same way, though each used a different sample and measure, so the figures below cannot be compared directly or added together.

The clinical samples are, by design, people already seeking help, so their rates are likely to be higher than among refugees in general. A 2025 systematic review found only 11 studies, covering 3,053 refugees, on what shapes bereavement outcomes in this group, and called for research on the longer-term effects^[8].

Distance does not only add risk. In a US interview study, middle-aged and older immigrants said distance had complicated caregiving and burial rites, but had also acted as an emotional buffer that protected them from prolonged grief^[9]. In the German study, among the second generation it was being in the same country as the person who died that went with more severe symptoms^[1]. The honest summary is that transnational death shapes grief in more than one direction, and that the quantitative evidence, as the German authors note, is still lacking^[1].

Distance changes what people can do before and after a death

Much of what helps people through a death happens around it: being there in the last weeks, saying goodbye, washing or sitting with the body, joining the funeral, and being surrounded by others who knew the person. Distance can take part or all of this away.

A 2023 scoping review of relatives caring from a distance for someone at the end of life screened 3,827 papers and found only 20 relevant studies plus one review. It concluded that research on their experiences and needs is lacking. The themes it did find were distance as a barrier to caregiving, communication difficulties, the role of video and phone calls, and interaction and conflict with caregivers on the spot^[10].

Some migrants who are themselves seriously ill want to go home to die, which brings its own barriers. In a study of 28 patients, relatives, cultural mediators and others in Italy, problems with residence status, access to care and money often complicated decisions, particularly for people considering going back^[11]. When it can be done, it can go well: in a small US study of 19 bereaved caregivers of Latinx immigrant patients who returned to their country of origin to die, most of them to the Dominican Republic, 84.2% said their relative died peacefully and with dignity, and 73.7% that they died in the place they wanted^[12]. The authors argue that the wish to go home should be part of conversations about goals of care.

After a death, the loss of shared rituals is a recurring theme. Overseas Filipino workers interviewed about deaths in their families during the 2020 lockdown described the strain of an unexpected death while physically distant and the absence of traditional mourning rituals^[13]. That study had five participants: it describes experiences, not how common they are.

COVID-19 closed borders on people who were dying and people who were grieving

The pandemic made grieving at a distance unavoidable for many migrants at once. Travel bans, quarantine rules and flight cancellations meant people could not reach a dying parent or attend a funeral, and in many places funerals themselves were restricted.

In Australia, from March 2020, leaving the country required an individual exemption, and many visa holders and parents of citizens could not enter without one until the end of 2021. Between March 2020 and July 2021, 109,782 of 299,126 applications to leave (more than 36%) and 130,663 of 188,282 applications to enter (69%) were refused^[2]. These figures cover applications for every reason, so they do not show how many were made to visit a dying relative or attend a funeral.

In a self-selected survey of almost 4,000 people who said they had been harmed by the shut border, 84% reported high or very high psychological distress. Of 1,890 who wrote about their experience and gave a reason, 85.9% said they had wanted to travel, or to bring someone in, to be with a partner, family or friends^[2]. Being physically present for births, deaths and marriages mattered particularly, and video calls were described as a poor substitute; one participant described watching a family funeral by live stream three days after their own child was born^[2].

A 2024 scoping review of 26 studies of the social effects of pandemic travel measures found family separation and the inability to meet cultural needs among the main harms, and noted how little these effects had been studied^[14]. An analysis of nine international news articles found coverage framed migrants’ grief at a distance as “an impossible situation” that left them with impossible choices^[15]. For Latinx immigrants in the United States, researchers describe a combination of disrupted bereavement practices, limited social support and immigration-related stress, but say little is known about how common prolonged grief is in this group^[16].

When migrants die abroad, families at home wait for bodies and answers

Bereavement across borders also runs from the country of destination back to the country of origin. When a migrant worker dies abroad, the family at home may have to arrange to bring the body back, and may get little information about how the person died.

Nepal offers some of the clearest data. Around 3.5 million Nepalese work in the Gulf countries, Malaysia and India, and more than 1,000 die each year in these countries, not counting India. A post-mortem examination is not carried out in most of the destination countries^[17]. Using Nepal’s own records of workers in Qatar from 2009 to 2017, researchers found an average death rate of 150 per 100,000 a year, with causes poorly described and many deaths listed only as “cardiac arrest”. They estimated that as many as 200 of the 571 cardiovascular deaths in that period could have been prevented with protection from heat^[18]. For families, a vague cause of death on the paperwork can leave lasting questions about what happened and whether it could have been prevented.

For some families there is no body at all, or no certainty. The International Organization for Migration has recorded 86,399 people dead or missing during migration since 2014, an undercount by its own account, and says solutions are urgently needed for families’ many unmet needs^[3]. Researchers working with Mexican relatives of migrants who disappeared along the US–Mexico border describe ambiguous loss, in which the person is physically absent but psychologically present, and close relatives reported headaches, insomnia, anxiety, depression and chronic disease^[19].

We looked for data on visa refusals for people travelling to a funeral or deathbed, and on how often the remains of people who die abroad are returned to their country of origin. We found none that met our standard. Both are basic facts about this group’s experience that, as far as we can tell, no country publishes.

What the evidence asks of us

The studies here are small, and most come from a handful of countries, but they point to a few practical conclusions for services, employers, governments and funders.

• Ask where the death happened. Bereavement and mental health services rarely record whether a death was abroad. The German researchers argue that migration-related experiences should be taken into account in research on prolonged grief^[1], and the Australian researchers suggest offering mental health support aimed at people born overseas or with family overseas^[2].
• Treat transnational networks as part of end-of-life care. Palliative care professionals in the Italian study were urged to recognise the importance of transnational networks and to talk openly about where a person wishes to die^[11], and the US repatriation study argues that going home should be part of goals-of-care discussions^[12].
• Weigh the human cost of border rules. The review of pandemic travel measures calls for their social effects, including family separation and unmet cultural needs, to be weighed against public health goals in future^[14]. Compassionate exemptions for a dying relative or a funeral are part of that, and governments that publish how many such requests they receive and grant would make the cost visible.
• Record why migrants die, and tell their families. Researchers studying Nepalese workers call for accurate records of deaths and their causes, and for causes of death more precise than “cardiac arrest”^[17][18].
• Fund the research that is missing. No country we could find counts migrants bereaved of family abroad, visa refusals for funerals or repatriations of remains. Studies built with the communities concerned, in their own languages, would give migrant and diaspora organisations the evidence they need.

Leave from work matters too: travelling to a funeral abroad can take longer than bereavement leave allows, a question our study of bereavement and work looks at. Faith and cultural practices around death are covered in our study of minority ethnic and faith communities, and international students in our study of young adults and students.

Language: this piece uses plain words such as “died” rather than euphemisms, because they are clearer. It uses “migrants” for people living outside the country where they were born, and keeps each study’s own terms (refugees, immigrants, migrant workers) when reporting it.

Why we're publishing this

Many people grieve from the wrong side of a border, at work in a new country or waiting at home for news of a relative abroad. Their grief is ordinary grief, but the barriers around it are not: travel rules, residence status, the cost and paperwork of moving a body, and services that rarely ask. Migrant and diaspora organisations often support people through all of this with little published evidence to point to. We have brought together what exists so that they can cite it, and so that the gaps are plain.

How to read this data

Almost everything here comes from small studies: online and community surveys, clinical samples, interview studies and reviews. None is a population register, and none of the surveys is representative, so their percentages describe the people who took part, not migrants in general. The prolonged grief figures come from different countries, groups and measures and cannot be compared directly. Clinical samples of refugees seeking treatment are likely to show higher rates than refugees as a whole. The Australian exemption figures are government counts, reported in a peer-reviewed study, and cover all reasons for travel. The IOM figure counts people recorded as dead or missing during migration and is a minimum estimate; the counter changes as cases are added. Most of the evidence comes from Germany, the United States, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands and Nepal; we found little from other regions.

Use this data

Free to cite with attribution to Understanding Bereavement. Migrant and diaspora organisations, services and journalists are welcome to reuse these figures and charts. For the underlying figures as a spreadsheet, get in touch.

Important: This study summarises published research about groups of people for general information. It is not medical advice or bereavement support, and it cannot describe or predict anything about an individual person or family. If you are worried about yourself or someone else, please speak to a GP or another qualified professional.

Sources

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