2024 will end with an unprecedented number of deaths on our borders. From January 1 to December 15 of this year, 10,457 people have died or disappeared in their attempt to migrate to Spain, 58% more than those counted in 2023, according to the report by the organization Caminando Fronteras prepared from its system. of alerts of boats in danger through direct contact with the survivors of the tragedies and the loved ones of the victims. Every day, 30 people have lost their lives in border waters; 30 families have waited with anguish for a message that never arrived.
The document analyzes 293 tragedies that occurred on the different routes traveled by those trying to reach Spain, of which 131 vessels disappeared without a trace. Of the victims, 1,538 were minors and 421 were women. “These figures show a profound failure of the rescue and protection systems. More than 10,400 people dead or missing in a single year is an unacceptable tragedy. We urge that the protection of the right to life be prioritized, search and rescue operations be strengthened, and justice be guaranteed for the victims and their families,” denounces Helena Maleno, founder of the group and coordinator of the investigation.
By migratory routes, 9,757 deaths were recorded on the so-called Atlantic route, 517 on the Algerian route, 110 in the Strait and 73 on the one that crosses the Alboran Sea. The data is obtained by the NGO after collating testimonies from survivors, direct witnesses of the tragedies, as well as complaints from relatives desperate to locate their loved ones who have embarked. The Malian TD is one of the people who saw his companions die at sea while trying to reach the Canary Islands. “The boat was left adrift, the waves were carrying us. We were all very tired, and when you saw someone sit calmly and stop crying or praying, it was because they were dying. Lives were fading, and I was waiting to be the next, but it was my brother,” he describes in a testimony collected by Caminando Fronteras.
“I told my brother not to drink sea water, to hold on, but he drank without stopping, then he vomited, and then he sat down and stopped talking. I didn’t have the strength to throw his body away, others did. In addition to my brother, I saw an entire family die, the father ended up jumping into the sea when he threw the last of his children. We didn’t have the strength to stop him. “I didn’t feel anything when they finally rescued us, I had no strength in my body but not in my soul either.”
The deadliest route
The vast majority of deaths documented by the NGO, like those of TD’s colleagues, have taken place on the so-called Atlantic route, whose destination is the Canary Islands. Of the documented tragedies suffered by people traveling in canoes from West Africa, 71% correspond to those who departed from Mauritania, the main departure point to the Archipelago, although they also depart from Senegal, Agadir (Morocco) and Dakhla (Sahara). occupied West). “Boat departures from this country have not stopped even in periods where the weather conditions on the route have been terribly complicated. The months between January and April are the deadliest on the route,” the report maintains. Along this path, the number of women from areas of the Sahel where traditionally the migratory journey was made by men has also increased, with an “incipient feminization” occurring when leaving Mauritania. At least 6,829 people who embarked from the Mauritanian coast stayed at sea. 67 cayucos disappeared without a trace.
The boats that make this journey mainly travel with people from the Sahel, who use Mauritania as a transit country to reach Europe. “These people are fleeing war conflicts, the impact of climate change and various forms of violence, such as labor exploitation, forced marriages and trafficking for sexual exploitation,” the NGO recalls.
The migratory crossing from the coastal strip located between Agadir and Dakhla stands out for the majority presence of inflatable boats similar to those that travel along the Mediterranean routes, as Caminando Fronteras has been detecting since 2019. “Zodiacs are very dangerous to navigate in the Atlantic, where maritime conditions are more severe than in the Mediterranean,” the organization warns.
“We sink, one of the tires is completely deflated, there are people already in the water, we support them so they don’t separate from the boat. We’ve been communicating for hours, you already have the position, why doesn’t anyone come? We have called everyone, they say that Morocco is coming but it is not coming, they should send at least a plane, something. We are not going to hold out any longer, we will all go to the bottom, no one has mercy on us, may Allah have mercy on us,” cried one of the migrants who called this year from a zodiak to the group’s alert system. The group has also detected “a pattern of joint departures at short intervals” at this point, which also increases the risk of tragedies.
For its part, after the electoral victory of Oussmane Sonko, departures from Senegal and Gambia have fallen since 2023, especially in the first months of 2024, although it has remained constant from the second quarter onwards, the study analyzes. However, the organization has recorded 26 tragedies on this journey with 2,127 victims and eight missing boats.
The routes that cross the Mediterranean, although less traveled, have also left hundreds of victims this year. If since 2020, the majority of departures from Algeria ended on the coasts located between Almería and Alicante, this year Caminando Fronteras has detected “a greater trend” towards the Balearic Islands, the most dangerous area of the route. Although those who cross this path are mainly Algerians, there has been an increase in those who come from the Sahel, West Africa, East Africa and Asia. The NGO has identified Syrian, Palestinian and Yemeni people on this route.
The route of the Strait is marked by the alarming percentage of minor victims, many of them after trying to cross the Tarajal border breakwater towards Ceuta. 20% of the victims on this route are children and adolescents. According to Caminando Fronteras, 110 people have died on this route and five boats have completely disappeared.
“The increase in victims is directly related to factors such as the omission of the duty to provide relief above the protection of the right to life, the prevalence of border externalization policies that violate the human rights of migrants, the lack of activation or the delay in search and rescue operations, even when the position of the boats was known,” lists the NGO. Added to the deficiencies detected by the organization are the precarious conditions in which many of these vessels travel.
When the Caminando Fronteras team asked the Malian TD if anyone was helping him after his arrival in Spain, he answered no. “No one is interested, that’s why I leave everything in the hands of Allah, and I just want to continue on my way to France, work and help my family. Well, I want something else, you know what I want? “I want to sleep without seeing the faces of all those who died when I close my eyes,” TD, Malian survivor of a shipwreck, “answered the survivor of the tragedy in which he saw his brother die.
Source: www.eldiario.es
