A group of about 140 sub-Saharan migrants were intercepted by Mauritanian coastguards as they were boarding a boat bound for the Canary Islands in Spain, a security source told Efe. This spokesman added that one of the members of the group died at sea and stated that the boat was spotted by a Coast Guard plane yesterday when it was experiencing technical problems, including a lack of fuel. The migrants, including three women and a minor, were taken on a Coast Guard vessel to the town of Nouadhibou, 470 kilometers north of Nouakchott, to receive medical care.
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The advance of migration from the African coasts is far from stopped. In the first seven months of the year, 9,589 people arrived in the islands by sea, according to the Interior Ministry, up 27.3% from the same period in 2021. The number of arrivals recorded up to July this year is 47% higher than the same period in 2020, a year that was the second busiest year for arrivals since 2006.
In this way, so far this year, the archipelago accounts for 57% of the total number of immigrant arrivals throughout Spain (both by sea and by land). At the national level, the total number of immigrants who arrived irregularly in Spain up to July 31st was 16,718, 3.3% more than in the same period of 2021, although the trend of a sustained decrease in arrivals in Spain continues.
The Canarian route is also one of the deadliest by sea. The International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Program has identified at least 322 deaths so far this year, 67% of all deaths recorded by that United Nations-based organization. The last known case occurred on July 25. Then, according to Red Cross and Canary Islands 112 sources, a four-year-old girl and woman were found dead in the Atlantic Ocean aboard the dinghy they were trying to reach Lanzarote with 49 other people.
According to the Rights to Life report presented on July 20 by the Walking Borders group, an average of five migrants died trying to reach Spain every day in the first half of 2022, for a total of 978 victims. According to them, 800 of these deaths occurred on the Canary Route, the deadliest. According to this organization, 4,016 people died in 2021 on the way to the islands from a total of 124 known shipwrecks. A recent investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross highlights the difficulties encountered in identifying the bodies of those trying to reach Europe and confirms that the vast majority of track is lost: Spain recovers only 9% of the bodies of migrants who in Europe die the sea.
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