They embarked for the Canary Islands, but the engine broke down, food and water ran out. They were days adrift and, one by one, its occupants died of dehydration. Those who still had strength threw the corpses into the ocean. The only survivor, found in a state of shock inside the boat, told the Mauritanian authorities about the terrible trip in which he saw 27 companions die. It was the third known shipwreck last week. Others are never heard of. So far this year, one person has died for every 20 who have landed on the islands, according to the Missing Migrants Project of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The data is worse than that of any other Mediterranean route to reach Europe.
The migration route to the Canary Islands is more active than in the last 12 years and the trickle of boat wrecks is intensifying. As of July 31, 3,269 people had reached the archipelago, but at least 162 died in the attempt. If the number of people arriving at port is compared with the number of people who die, the Atlantic route to Europe exceeds this year in mortality to the Mediterranean corridor to Greece (where one dies for every 115 migrants who manage to disembark) and to the crossing of the Strait and the Alboran Sea, where one person dies or disappears for every 94 who arrive on the coast. In these terms - not in absolute numbers - it also exceeds the dangerous route to Italy and Malta, where one migrant dies for every 54 who arrive safely.
He did not know where the Canary Islands were, but he did know that that rubber boat that left a beach in Tan Tan (Morocco) would take him to Spain. Mohammed Kouyaté, a 20-year-old from Guinean, put on the life jacket that he had made with the inner tube of a tire and got on a boat where there were already 42 people. They came out on January 4 and were on the verge of not telling it. Out of gasoline and with a broken compass, Salvamento Marítimo found them fainting four days later. “The water ran out the first day. We were three without eating or drinking. We didn't sleep in four days because we were sitting on the edge of the zodiac, and you can fall. Fear doesn't let you sleep either, any noise scares you, "Kouyaté told EL PAÍS a few days after his rescue. During the journey, a woman gave birth and lost her baby. After disembarking, another of the passengers suffered a miscarriage. It was one of the most dramatic trips of this year. "When they rescued us, I felt that no part of my body was working, I could not lift my foot without it hurting," she says.
Calculating fatality on the Atlantic coast has many statistical limitations and this is a simplified approximation. The members of the Missing Migrants Project, which arose from a journalistic project to consolidate a record of deaths on migratory routes around the world, calculate the mortality rate with much more data than is available in the case of the Canary Islands. . Usually the official numbers of arrivals, rescued, intercepted by coastguards from neighboring countries, deaths and testimonies of the survivors are taken into account and with this information it is possible to know how many people of all those who try die on the way. But most of these data do not exist on the route to the islands, so the calculation is limited to the ratio between arrivals and dead or missing. While there is information on interceptions by the Libyan or Turkish coast guards, there is no information from the Moroccan coast guards or the West African countries. The number of "invisible shipwrecks" on this route, warn the IOM, are also a source of imprecision.
More than 10 days of crossing
In the small Gambian town of Barra, the tragic accident of last December still hurts. Only from this town that overlooks the Atlantic about 60 young people disappeared when the cayuco in which they were traveling collided with a rock near Nouadhibou, in Mauritania. “They told us it was going to be a walk, but it was actually hell,” remembers Emil Bass, who was able to survive climbing a cliff. From the intricate maze of islands at the mouth of the Sine Saloum or the Casamance River, in southern Senegal, a boat takes between 10 and 15 days to reach the Canary Islands. That if things go well. The opposite is often the case.
The Maritime Rescue coordination center of Gran Canaria and Tenerife responds to emergencies in one million square meters of ocean. The shortest distance, from Tarfaya (Morocco) to Fuerteventura, involves traveling in a straight line 52 miles (almost 100 kilometers), but the journey from Gambia is more than 800 miles (almost 1,500 kilometers) in poorly prepared boats and without enough gasoline to face more than a week at sea. “The conditions of this route are very different from those of others. Currents and meteorological conditions are important, but especially winds. During most of the year the trade winds predominate, which are from the northeast and blow against the trajectory of their boats ”, explains María Dolores Septién, head of the Salvamento coordination center in Tenerife. Septién, who lived through the tragedies during the 2006 canoe crisis, is still surprised to see the poor conditions in which rescued boats arrive, overloaded and with water inlets.
The cayuco is a very seaworthy vessel and it is difficult for it to blunder unless it hits something when approaching the coast, when the members do not respond due to the exhaustion of so many days at sea. However, most deaths are caused by hypothermia or dehydration. All it takes is a miscalculation with gasoline, an engine breakdown, or running out of water and food to turn the trip into a deadly nightmare. "There are unfortunates who sell them fuel mixed with water and condemn them to certain death," says Brahim Almamy, who works unloading fish in the port of Nouakchott.
“It is very, very dangerous, I will never forget it,” recalls Abdoulaye Ndiaye, who one day set sail from Senegal in a crowded boat. “You have to go into the sea more than 200 kilometers from the coast, in international waters, to avoid being caught. There you only think about death because whatever happens, no one will come to help you. The nights are the worst, you are shivering with cold. You eat cookies to survive and everyone around you vomits ”, says this young man from Keur Massar, a town near Dakar. “You put your life in God's hands and pray to arrive safely. It's the only thing you can do, ”he adds.
A booming route
The Canarian route, after a considerable upturn in arrivals, was re-activated in January. Arrivals have increased by almost six this year compared to 2019. Never a single reason explains the changes in migratory routes, but here the control exercised by the Moroccan police in the north of the country has been fundamental. Embarking towards the Strait or the Alboran Sea involves running a greater risk from raids, forced transfers and lockdowns by the authorities of the neighboring country. A more complicated - and expensive - route forces thousands of migrants to divert their course west or seek embarkation points in increasingly distant locations in the Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania.
The rescue capacity of these countries, financed in part by Spain, is limited. The NGOs that respond to the calls of migrants on the high seas accumulate dozens of notices in which they lose track of who called them seeking help. The Alarm Phone has received alerts so far this year from 21 vessels in distress while trying to reach the islands, but only 12 succeeded. Two just disappeared. The organization points out the limitations of the Royal Moroccan Navy in these emergencies. "They take many hours to reach the boats and they rarely reach them before the shipwreck", laments Paola Arenas, one of the members of the organization. "If the coordination between the authorities of the different states were used to save lives and not to militarize the borders, the numbers of lives lost would be much lower," he says.
The first shipwreck on record occurred in 1999. Nine young people from Guelmim (Morocco) died. In the first years of the last decade, the boats crashed against the rocks of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote and the deceased were counted by dozens. However, when Moroccan surveillance in Western Sahara diverted the exit points to the south, the deaths became invisible, like the worst known shipwreck in the history of clandestine emigration to the Canary Islands, which took place in 2007 when a cayuco with 160 young people from Kolda (Senegal) got lost in the immensity of the sea without leaving a trace.
Spain finances the coastguard
Since the end of the so-called cayuco crisis, for more than a decade, Spain has maintained close cooperative relations with the countries of West Africa. The list includes voluminous annual items by the Ministry of the Interior. The grants are aimed at combating irregular immigration and finance, among other things, part of the expenses of the coast guards and border police of Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Ivory Coast and the Gambia. The Mauritanian Coast Guard, from where a significant part of the boats arriving in the Canary Islands leaves, receives, for example, more than 10 million annually. The Canary Islands regional coordination center of the Civil Guard also has the permanent presence of a link from that country. In addition to another Moroccan and another Senegalese, the amounts for these purposes have tripled under Fernando Grande-Marlaksa and, in 2019, reached 45.9 million.