ARCHIVED - Over 2,000 migrants have died or gone missing while attempting to reach Spain by sea so far in 2021

The Atlantic route between north-west Africa and the Canaries has claimed 1,922 victims

The human rights group Caminando Fronteras is warning that 2021 could become one of the most dramatic in terms of migrants losing their lives while attempting to reach Spanish territory, after almost 2,100 died or went missing en route during the first six months of the year.

The total of 2,087 is already close to matching the figure of 2,170 for the whole of 2020, and with the situation having been exacerbated by the crisis in diplomatic relations between Spain and Morocco the organization warns that the outlook is bleak. The Moroccan crisis is “killing” migrants embarking on the “Canaries Route”, the group say, and between January and June 1,922 died or went missing in 57 incidents in the Atlantic between north-west Africa and the Spanish islands.

Another 165 victims are reported in the Mediterranean, including 93 in the Alboran Sea (the western Mediterranean), 36 in the Strait of Gibraltar and another 36 between Algeria and the eastern Mediterranean coast of Spain.

The topic of drownings at sea is given little coverage in the media and the almost daily arrival of boatloads of irregular migrants along the coastlines of Spain are so frequent that they also receive very little coverage.

The migrant crisis has many facets, the endless tricke of migrant boats an underlying thorn that is contributing to a souring of race relations in Spain and the rise of the far right; within the last few weeks, four migrant camps have been set on fire in the Andalusia region and just yesterday a mosque in the Murcia region was daubed with racist graffiti and a pig head left outside the entrance; migration, is a complex topic.