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ARCHIVED - 1 in 5 migrant deaths occur en route to the Canary Islands
The journey to Spain has become one of the most treacherous in the world for immigrants
The option of several different maritime routes that lead to the Canary Islands has led to an alarming upsurge in the number of illegal immigrants arriving in Spain in recent years, particularly from West Africa, often with tragic consequences.
It has long been acknowledged that the migratory journey to the Canary Islands is a treacherous one, but new data compiled by the United Nations reveals the distressing fact that one in every five deaths or disappearances recorded in the world occurred in the Atlantic heading for the Spanish islands.
According to the report, 5,795 people died in 2021 trying to reach another country from their homeland: 2,048 in the Mediterranean, 1,488 in Africa, 1,248 in America, 779 in East Asia, 133 in Europe and 99 in West Asia.
In just five short years, the increase in the number of migrants travelling to the Canary Islands in small boats and dinghies is striking. In 2017, the Canarian Route contributed to a single death on the list of migrants killed en route out of a total of 1,699. Since then, deaths along this maritime path have been growing steadily: 43 in 2018, 202 in 2019, 877 in 2020 and 1,109 last year.
To make matters worse, these numbers are likely just the tip of the iceberg, since they only represent cases in which the body is recovered (very few) or ones in which survivors can testify to a likely fatality.
More tragic still, the International Organisation for Migrations (IMO) estimates that at least 26 children and adolescents lost their lives trying to reach the Canary Islands in 2021, and already seven have died in the first quarter of 2022.
This dreadful statistic isn’t surprising, however, considering that today, one out of every seven immigrants arriving by boat in the Spanish islands is under the age of 18, according to the Red Cross.
In the first three months of 2022 alone, 42 babies, 88 children from three to 11-years-old and 585 adolescents from 12 to 17 have landed on the islands.
Image: Consorcio de Emergencias de Lanzarote
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