Spanish humanitarian organisation Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) stated that more than 6,600 migrants died in 2023 while trying to reach Spain by boat, almost thrice as many as the previous year, Brussels Signal reported.
The non-governmental organisation noted in its Right to Life monitoring report that “In 2023, 18 people died every day on the different migratory routes to the Spanish State.”
2023 has been the deadliest year since records began in 2007. Up to 6,618 people lost their lives at the Euro-African Western Border, including 363 women and 384 children.
According to Walking Borders, the most dangerous is the Canary Islands route across the Atlantic Ocean, west of Morocco, often used by migrants from Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia. The NGO cited what it said were the main reasons for the rising death toll:
“The prioritisation of border control over the duty to provide assistance, the failure to activate search and rescue resources with the necessary urgency, the increasingly common practice of passive searches, the impact of the externalisation of borders with third countries or the reduction of resources intended for the protection of life.”
The organisation accused political parties of “using racist, dehumanising narratives,” referring to political representatives of the Partido Popular (PP) and VOX parties, calling them “xenophobic.”
Spain’s Interior Ministry documented a record 57,000 migrants arriving by boat in 2023, almost double the previous year. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska claimed on January 4 that about 40 per cent of illegal departures were prevented last year due to “co-operation” with African countries.
The “co-operation” has resulted in some 27,000 migrants being unable to arrive in Spain in 2023, which “means having saved lives,” the minister stated, by preventing “dangerous sea crossings in difficult conditions.”
Nevertheless, migrants continue to disembark in the Canary Islands, which experienced a record high number of entries in the last months of 2023. According to local emergency services reports dated January 5, at least 381 people were rescued at sea and taken to the island group between January 4 and 5 alone.
273 of them landed on El Hierro, the smallest of the Canary Islands, with the rest disembarking on Gran Canaria. Six people were hospitalised.
