6,618 people, an average of 18 every day in 2023, died trying to reach Spain, through the different immigration routes. 276% more than in 2022. “The figures could not be more alarming,” warn Caminando Fronteras, which produced the report after “exhaustive monitoring” carried out 365 days last year thanks to migrant communities, rescue services, networks of family members and human rights defenders on the ground.
These numbers make 2023 the deadliest year since records exist. Those who died at sea are concentrated on the Canary Islands route. 6,007 people died last year in boats or canoes heading to the archipelago, 16 a day. In 2023, irregular arrivals to the Canary Islands broke all records, even surpassing the cayucos crisis of 2006, with 39,910 arrivals, according to the latest balance sheet from the Ministry of the Interior.
The Canary Islands route, across the Atlantic Ocean, is once again the most lethal migratory region in the world, as warned by Caminando Fronteras. In this transit area, it is worth highlighting this year the increase in departures from the most distant places on the route, such as Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia. Specifically, starting in June, the increase in cayucos coming from Senegal shows the exodus of its population caused by great social and political instability in the country.
On the Strait route, 147 people lost their lives, on the Alborán route 30 migrants died and on the Algerian route 434 died. Regarding the number of tragedies, the Canary Islands route also tops the list with 128, followed by the Strait route (45 ), the Algerian (34) and the Alborán (6). Also 84 boats disappeared with everyone on board. The deaths of 363 women and 384 children have been recorded.
The report does not only provide data. The Human Rights Observatory research team has analyzed the figures to try to define the causes of the increase in deaths. In its conclusions, it finds that the “most serious” is “the prioritization of border control over the duty of relief, the failure to activate search and rescue means with the necessary urgency.” An increasingly common practice, they say, of passive searches. In addition, they also point out the impact of the externalization of borders with third countries or the reduction of means intended for the protection of life.
Caminando Fronteras denounces that the states “have made the victims invisible” with their policies and the official accounts “have focused on the data of arrivals in Spanish territory, ignoring the dead and missing.”
“The analysis of the situation on the border by the authorities has focused more on control discourses, allowing the dissemination of racist and xenophobic messages that have even been promoted by institutional officials,” they criticize.
