A Spanish migrant rights group claimed on Tuesday that in 2023, at least 6,618 people died or vanished while attempting to enter Spain by sea, an average of 18 people per day.
According to its coordinator, Helena Maleno, the number is over three times more than the 2,390 figures from the previous year and the largest since Caminando Fronteras, or Walking Borders, started keeping track in 2007.
According to the NGO that gathers its data from official rescue records and the families of migrants who have died or disappeared, the number includes 384 children.
Casualties includes Children
Jerrymusa.com reports that approximately 6,007 fatalities and disappearances occurred mostly along the Atlantic migratory route that connected Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands.
As restrictions in the Mediterranean are being tightened, the seven islands have turned into a popular destination for individuals escaping war and poverty in Africa, usually aboard packed, hardly seaworthy boats with insufficient supplies of food and water for the trip.
Maleno declared, “The Atlantic route has emerged as the world’s deadliest route.”
Increasing number of illegal migrant every year
She attributed the increase in attempted crossings to Spain and the shortage of resources for rescues to the rise in migrant deaths and disappearances in the previous year.
According to data from the interior ministry, the number of undocumented migrants entering Spain in 2023 almost quadrupled from the previous year to 56,852, the highest since 64,298 migrants entered the nation in 2018.
The bulk, or over 70%, landed in the Canary Islands, which are only 60 miles (or 100 km) from Africa’s northwest coast as their closest point.