Avast, me hearties! A scurvy dog group yells that 951 souls met Davy Jones tryin' to reach Spain by sea in the first half of 2023.
2023-07-06
Arr, mateys! Be it known that a band of Spanish landlubbers be claimin' that a mighty 951 souls have met their watery graves whilst seekin' to set foot on Spanish shores in the first half of 2023. Aye, 'tis a tragic tale indeed!
In the first six months of 2023, a Spanish migrant rights group, Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders), reported that at least 951 migrants have died while attempting to reach Spain by sea. This includes 112 women and 49 children. The organization collects its data from migrant families and rescue statistics. Although official Spanish figures show a decrease in the number of boats arriving in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year, the death toll has increased by 13. Spain's Interior Ministry stated that 12,192 people arrived by boat in the first six months, a 4% decline from the previous year.Caminando Fronteras blamed the lack of coordination between Spain and Morocco, as well as the failure to conduct timely rescue operations, for the rising number of casualties. They highlighted an incident on June 21, in which a boat sank off Morocco's coast, resulting in 24 people being rescued, two bodies retrieved, and 36 migrants disappearing. The Moroccan rescue ship arrived ten hours after the initial warnings were sent. Another recent case involved 55 migrants who went missing when their boat sank en route to Spain's Canary Islands. Only four individuals were rescued by Moroccan authorities, with no official information available from Morocco about the incident.
The International Organization for Migration's Missing Migrants Project confirmed these incidents based on reports from Caminando Fronteras and Alarm Phone, another group that receives distress calls from migrant boats. Caminando Fronteras also revealed that in 2022, a total of 2,390 migrants died or were reported missing in their attempts to reach Spain. These alarming numbers highlight the dangerous and often deadly risks migrants face in their pursuit of a better life.