2023-07-06 17:37:48
AA / Oviedo / Alyssa McMurtry
Some 951 migrants died trying to reach Spain in the first half of 2023, according to a report published Thursday by the NGO Walking Borders.
The victims were from 14 countries, from Morocco to Congo, including Syria, Sudan and Sri Lanka, the report said.
Most of them perished while crossing the Atlantic to the Canary Islands. An estimated 778 people died on this route, including all of the passengers on 19 boats, making it one of the deadliest migration routes in the world.
This figure includes the 36 people who died in June in the waters between Spain and Morocco. According to Walking Borders, their dinghy sent distress messages for more than ten hours before help arrived, when a Spanish coastguard vessel was less than an hour away.
Walking Borders filed a formal request Thursday for a criminal investigation into the inaction surrounding the tragedy.
“We spent hours waiting, begging, we called everywhere, the Spanish coast guard, the Moroccan navy, we sent our position, but no one came. The sea is very wide and very scary, ( … The children were crying a lot, we had no water … I saw them die in front of me, they were sinking into the sea,” said a victim identified as FB in the report.
“When the help arrived, it was too late. The Moroccans abandoned us in the desert, I had burns and they got infected, thank God I’m alive. We only have God left when all the world wants us dead,” said FB
Although the Spanish Ministry of the Interior indicated that migration flows to the Canary Islands had decreased by around 20% compared to last year, Walking Borders claims that the number of deaths on the same route remained the same. .
“This murderous policy has been in place for a long time at the border. But we have also seen an increase in impunity in the face of rising death rates, which leaves victims and their families without access to legal remedies and remedies. repairs,” Helena Maleno Garzon, director of Walking Borders, said in a statement.
In addition to the people who perished trying to reach the Canary Islands, 50 died trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, and 123 died crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Morocco or Algeria.
*Translated from English by Mourad Belhaj
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