The help came too late again.

44 migrants who had made their way to the Spanish Canary Islands drowned off the coast of Western Sahara.

They sent an emergency call to the Spanish aid organization Caminando Fronteras, which immediately informed the Moroccan authorities.

“The rescue took four fateful hours.

As is so often the case, death was the result," wrote the spokeswoman for "Caminando Fronteras", Helena Maleno, in the short message service Twitter: Twelve people were recovered alive, 16 bodies were still in the boat;

all the other passengers were swallowed up by the sea.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

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Red-tagged alerts with captions like "Alert" and "Tragedy" keep popping up on Maleno's Twitter account.

Most recently, 25 people drowned off Gran Canaria at the end of April.

It was only on Friday that the Spanish coast guard had rescued 118 people on two inflatable boats who were in distress off Gran Canaria at the last minute.

The threat to life does not seem to deter them.

In the first quarter of this year, the number of migrants entering the Canary Islands increased by 50 percent compared to the same period last year.

According to the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, there were more than 6,600 people in total.

The most important route from Africa to Spain leads via the Canary Islands.

It's hard to say how many didn't make it.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR, this is one of the most dangerous routes from Africa.

More than half of all boats depart from Morocco

The UN counted 38 percent of all drowned people (a total of 1153 people) on their way to the Canary Islands last year.

Their exact number cannot be determined either, because many ships – often overcrowded inflatable boats – disappear without a trace in the high waves of the Atlantic, on which they often travel for ten days or more;

95 percent of the bodies are not recovered.

According to "Caminando Fronteras" there were more than 4404 in 2021 - more than twice as many as in the previous year.

The group is well connected in the migrants' countries of origin and regularly receives calls for help from boats in distress.

More than half of all boats depart from Morocco, most of them from the Rabat-annexed Western Sahara coast.

After March's political reconciliation, the Spanish government hopes Morocco will do more to stop migrants from setting sail for Europe.

In April, a first decline compared to the beginning of the year was observed, according to Madrid.

Spain is particularly relying on the deterrent effect of the rapid return of migrants, which was intensified a few weeks ago.

According to press reports, both states want to resume the joint patrols that were interrupted during the pandemic.