Migrants wait to disembark from a wooden boat after being rescued by a Spanish Coast Guard vessel at the port of Arguineguin on Gran Canaria, Spain, on January 2, 2024. [Photo/Agencies]
Advocacy groups say an average of 18 migrants die every day trying to reach Spain.
Caminando Fronteras, which means “walking border” in English, said in the Right to Life Monitoring report that the 6,618 people who died trying to enter the country in 2023 were almost triple the 2,390 recorded in 2022. .
The report said tighter border controls in the European Union’s southern gateway countries meant migrants were taking increasingly risky options to enter the bloc.
“2023 was a terrible year, a massacre along the Spanish border,” said Helena Mareno, who founded and runs an NGO.
The report said the death toll, including 384 children, was the highest since the organization began its work in 2007.
Most of the dead (about 6,007 people) were migrants attempting to travel from Africa’s west coast to Spain’s Canary Islands.
The Guardian newspaper quoted Mareno as saying, “The Atlantic route has become the deadliest sea route in the world.”
The week-long 1,600km voyage from Senegal to the Canary Islands was the most dangerous route, with 84 ships sunk en route to mainland Spain in 2023, the report said.
Despite the dangers, 39,910 migrants arrived safely on the island during 2023, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry. The total increased by 154% in 2022.
In October, the Spanish government announced a 50 million euro ($54 million) aid package to help the islands cope.
Most of the migrants who died en route to the Canary Islands were from Senegal, but others came from countries such as Algeria, Cameroon, Gambia and even as far away as Syria.
The report also notes that while previously the majority were men, “in the last quarter of 2023, women and young children, including infants, also began to cross.”
Spain’s Ministry of the Interior announced that in 2023, 56,852 migrants arrived irregularly in the Spanish region by land or sea. The total increased by 82.1% compared to 2022.
Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande Marlasca said Thursday that his country is stepping up cooperation with African countries to prevent people from attempting to travel to Africa. He said the effort had prevented 27,000 people from leaving the country.
“We saved lives,” he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
In addition to the lives lost on the Canary Islands route, 434 people died trying to enter Spain via Algeria, 147 died in the Strait of Gibraltar, and 30 died in the Alboran Sea west of the Strait of Gibraltar, according to the Caminando Fronteras report. people lost their lives. Mediterranean Sea.
Caminando Fronteras compiles the list by monitoring government figures, reports from families and friends of migrants, and alerts received from people at sea.