The migratory route from Morocco to the Canary Islands continues to register a trickle of deaths despite the drop in the transit of small boats

North African migrants rescued in a boat in the waters of the Canary Islands, on Wednesday in the port of Arrecife (Lanzarote). Adriel Perdomo (EFE)

The irregular immigration route from southern Morocco and Western Sahara to the Canary Islands has been reduced this year due to increased surveillance by the authorities, but the journey to the archipelago remains one of the deadliest to reach Europe. .

Between 53 and 56 people who were traveling in an inflatable boat have disappeared or drowned after setting sail from the Tan Tan area (850 kilometers southeast of Rabat) on the 7th and the last news about their whereabouts was received. time three days later.

The testimony of three survivors found on the cliffs of Tan Tan last Monday, which Moroccan and international NGOs reported on Tuesday, has come to confirm the tragic outcome suffered by the occupants of the boat, originally from Senegal, Mali,

Guinea or Ivory Coast.

It is not the only deadly case.

The Alarm Phone collective, which offers help to migrants in difficulty and alerts the services responsible for rescue operations, has reported that 11 bodies allegedly belonging to some of the castaways have been deposited in the Tan Tan morgue.

One of her collaborators, Maruki García, specified this Wednesday that another 14 bodies are found in the morgue in the nearby town of Guelmin.

"We fear that it is another shipwreck of a boat occupied by North Africans that left the area in the direction of the Canary Islands on the same dates," she explains in a telephone conversation.

"And we do not rule out that a third shipwreck has been registered this month, according to reports received from the area," she says, "but the Moroccan authorities have not offered official data."

In the early hours of Wednesday, Salvamento Marítimo rescued 77 North Africans who were heading towards the Canary Islands, according to Efe.

The migrants (71 men, four women and two children) were taken to the port of Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote.

"The deaths of those who were traveling in the boat with which contact was lost on the 10th could have been avoided," says the Alarm Phone collaborator.

"We informed the authorities of their exact location by GPS from the same day 7 at 9:00 p.m., when their boat was leaking in the middle of a storm, but no one came to help them," García emphasizes.

Since the beginning of 2022 (with data up to December 15), 15,466 people have entered the Canary Islands irregularly, compared to 20,603 for the entire previous year, according to information published by the Ministry of the Interior.

The new stage of collaboration with Morocco, after the turn of the Spanish Government last March in favor of the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara, has contributed to containing irregular immigration to Spain.

In the last five years, six people a day have died, on average, trying to reach the coasts of Spain in precarious boats, according to the report by the NGO Caminando Fronteras presented on Monday in Barcelona.

The organization specialized in reporting and warning about rescues and shipwrecks concludes that 11,286 people have lost their lives since 2018 on the different migratory routes, coming from Senegal to Algeria.

70% of the deceased corresponds to the Canary Islands route.

In 2022 (2,154 deaths as of November 30) the number of deaths in shipwrecks has fallen to 2020 levels (2,384) after the peak experienced in 2021 (4,639) before the diplomatic rapprochement between Madrid and Rabat.

The figures on deaths and missing persons are, in any case, an approximation and vary according to the source.

The International Organization for Migration, which depends on the UN, is more conservative in its calculations.

"The use of Zodiacs (inflatable boats), much less safe and stable, is behind the recent increase in shipwrecks," says the Alarm Phone contributor.

30% of the cases of boats with victims registered in 2021 corresponded to this type of vessel, according to Caminando Fronteras.

Six bodies on the Algerian border

On the border between Algeria and Morocco, one of the main penetration routes into the North African country for sub-Saharan Africans heading to Europe through Spain, at least six African migrants have lost their lives in the last week.

The lifeless bodies of two Chadians, two citizens of Guinea Bissau and two other unidentified sub-Saharan Africans were found in a forest near the Moroccan border city of Oujda, the Nador section of the NGO Moroccan Association for Rights reported on Wednesday. Human and Alarm Phone.

Collaborators of this last rescue aid group point out that the migrants could have died of cold and starvation or because of the injuries they suffered when crossing the fences and ditches in the dividing line between countries.

"We fear that there are finally seven people killed on the Algerian-Moroccan border," warns the Alarm Phone collaborator in an exchange of messages, about the bodies now deposited in the Jerada morgue, about twenty kilometers south of Oujda .

“Crossing that closed border (it was closed by both countries in 1994), which is very difficult to access and is heavily militarized, is very risky,” she explains.

“The current low temperatures and the difficulties of passage require having a good physical capacity”, she concludes.

"Whoever does not have stamina stays on the road."

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