Canary Islands, the world’s deadliest border: 6,007 people died trying to reach the islands in 2023
“When the rescue services from Fuerteventura arrived, there were already people in the water. The sea swallowed the bodies of the deceased”. On September 11, 2023, the Salvamento Maritimo plane located a boat with 38 survivors bound for the Canary Islands. The pneumatics were broken, with the left side completely deflated. Upon reaching land, the migrants confirmed the tragedy: at least twelve people drowned hours before rescue teams arrived. The Archipelago was once again last year ”the most lethal migratory region in the world”. In twelve months , 6,007 people lost their lives trying to cross the Atlantic.
The figures for the Canary Islands route exceed the figures for the rest of the access routes to Spain. In 2023, 147 people died in the Strait; 30 in the Alboran Sea and 434 on the Algerian route, according to data published Tuesday in the 2023 Right to Life Monitoring of the collective Caminando Fronteras. Of the 6,618 people who died trying to reach Spain, 363 were women and 384 were children.
In most cases, the boats disappear with all the people on board. “In many of the documented tragedies, search and rescue resources were not activated. If it was done, it was with a significant delay that put people’s lives at risk,” the document reads. According to Caminando Fronteras, there is a “migratory bias” in the activation of rescues, caused by the externalization of borders. “The Spanish state presses for rescues to be carried out by third countries, even if the other country does not have sufficient means, capabilities or willingness to do so. The approach is one of migratory interception and not of rescues of people,” they add.
The route from Agadir to Dakhla
The route connecting Morocco and Western Sahara with Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote has claimed the lives of 1,418 people. October was the deadliest month, with 436 victims, followed by June (371) and February (229). Departures from the area from Agadir to Dakhla marked the reopening of the Canary route in 2019. “It’s a militarized zone. The raids are much stronger and then they abandon you in the desert,” says a Malian refugee.
Wooden or fiber boats were replaced by inflatable boats, a more unstable and dangerous type of barge. This journey also involves women traveling with their children, many of whom were born along the way. “I beg so they can eat, they have no birth registration or anything. All I can say is that I can’t go backwards, only forwards,” recounts a Cameroonian mother.
Caminando Fronteras points to the lack of coordination between Spain and Morocco as one of the causes of the tragedies. The collective cites as an example the shipwreck of June 21, which resulted in the death of 39 people and is being investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. “We knew they weren’t going to go, we knew they were going to die. We knew because it’s our day to day life at the border,” a spokeswoman for the migrant community states in the report.
Shootings at exit points
The repression of migrants is increasing. On May 25, 43 people arrived in Gran Canaria in a patera. On the pier, one survivor reported being shot at the beach. Doctors found that he had gunshot wounds. “They started shooting when we were in the dinghy, I counted up to four bursts. On the shore there was a dead boy,” recounts one survivor. He was a Malian boy.
“I still can’t sleep at night, I hear the gunshots, I see his face, I wonder if his parents know he’s dead and where his body is,” she adds. Caminando Fronteras affirms that the body is in the morgue in El Aaiún. Three other people were wounded in the shooting and, although they were able to board the skiff, they died en route.
The route of the cayucos
The route connecting Senegal with the Canary Islands has had a “terrible prominence” in 2023. Thousands of people have left the country to escape the political instability it is experiencing. Last year alone, the crossing of the canoes involved 3,176 victims in 55 different tragedies.
Behind these figures are thousands of families who still cannot find answers. “We have not yet come to terms with the loss of life in 2006. In this neighborhood there are hundreds of fishermen who left and never came back. We don’t know what will happen to these new victims, what the people of Senegal will do with their memory,” a Senegalese activist tells the report.
In Senegal, bereavement associations have been set up. These spaces also emerged in the 2006 cayuco crisis and are mostly made up of women. “From that time there is no data on dead people, but in the neighborhood you can see the orphans who have grown up. We would like the State to draw up the figures of those who have left and disappeared, but it is impossible,” says an activist for the rights of migrants.
Political and social instability in Senegal began to worsen in the early months of 2023, with the imprisonment of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko. Since then, the disappearances of young nationals have multiplied. A fisherman from a Senegalese fishermen’s association recalls that they report disappearances ”every week”. ”There are many, many people who have prepared to leave the country, who are still preparing even yesterday, today,” he notes. In the face of the repression suffered by those protesting in the streets, many minors have chosen to leave their homes. ”Many teens are not ready to embark on such a journey, but they try it anyway,” the report notes.
During the second half of 2023, departures from Mauritania to El Hierro increased. and Gran Canaria. Ten tragedies were recorded on this route, with 395 victims and seven vessels missing. Between The Gambia and the Archipelago, there were 1,018 deaths, involving nationals of The Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Guinea Bissau and Guinea Conakry. “Without the body the wound does not close, it is as if the scar is always soft and could open up at any moment,” the report concludes.
