According to the Caminando Fronteras NGO, the vast majority of these migrants lost their lives by trying to reach the Canaries from the northwestern Africa. This terrible assessment makes the most murderous year since at least 2015.
Le Monde with AFP
“These are the numbers of pain,” deplored the coautrice of the report. More than 4,400 migrants died or disappeared last year when crossing them at sea to Spain, twice as much as in 2020, according to a balance sheet published by the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, Monday, January 3rd. The vast majority of the bodies (at 94%) of these 404 people have never been found, the latter are therefore accounted for as missing.
This terrible assessment drawn up by the NGO – which establishes its numbers thanks to the calls of migrants or their relatives on its emergency numbers – made of the most deadly year since at least 2015, the date on which date back The first works of the NGO. In 2020, Caminando Fronteras had identified 2,170 dead or missing.
The balance sheet of this NGO for 2021 is much higher than that of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which has identified at least 955 dead or missing in the crossing, from Morocco and Algeria, towards the ‘Archipelago of Canaries and 324 Towards Continental Spain and Balearic Archipelago.
It also considers that the year 2021 has been extremely deadly, the most deadly since 1997 according to its data and those of the Spanish NGO APDHA.
“Feminization” migratory routes
According to Caminando Fronteras, the vast majority of these migrants have disappeared by trying to reach the Canaries from the northwestern Africa. This road, very dangerous, is much more borrowed in recent years due to the strengthening of controls in the Mediterranean, explained María González Rollán, Coautrice of the annual report of the NGO. She also emphasized the “feminization” migratory routes to Spain: 628 women and 205 children died or have disappeared in 2021, according to the NGO.
The coordinator of Caminando Fronteras, Helena Maleno, denounced “lack of means” for rescues and highlighted the responsibility of the “criminal organizations” of smugglers, as well as the lack of coordination between Spain and Morocco Because of their diplomatic blossom.
This crisis, caused by the reception for medical reasons, in Spain, the head of the independentists of Western Sahara, had led to the arrival of more than 10,000 migrants in mid-May in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, at The favor of releasing controls by flap.
Spain remains one of the main gates of entry of clandestine migrants in Europe. At least 37,385 migrants arrived on its coasts in 2021, according to the latest figures from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior.