Sea crossings to Europe: NGO sets sad record in Spain

A wooden boat used by migrants from Morocco on the shore of the coast of the Canary Island of Gran Canaria, Spain, in October 2020. AP - Javier Bauluz

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1 min

During the year 2021, the Caminando Fronteras association recorded 4,404 dead or missing people, including 628 women and 205 children, among the arrivals of migrants via the seaway.

An increase of more than 100% compared to 2020.

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With our correspondent in Madrid,

What emerges from the comprehensive annual report carefully prepared by the Spanish association Caminando Fronteras is not only the terrible increase in deaths at sea from one year to the next, but also the fact that the most dangerous route is by far that of the Canaries.

It is a question of these makeshift boats which leave from the African coast, especially from Tan Tan or El-Ayoun, in the extreme south of Morocco, and which try to reach the Canary Islands archipelago.

According to this association, which specializes in helping migrants passing through seas, this tragic route resulted in more than 4,000 deaths and 124 shipwrecks in 2021.

The reasons put forward by President Helena Maleno are multiple: the boats are said to be in a deplorable state, the captains of these crossings are less and less experienced, the sea routes are increasingly perilous.

Finally, in his eyes, Spanish and European maritime vigilance would be each time more muscular and abrupt, which would cause numerous shipwrecks.

►Read again: In Spain, expulsion to Morocco of more than 700 minor migrants

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• International Migration