NGO Report: Algeria to Spain Migrant Route Death Toll
It’s not only Morocco which has a worrying migration problem in the Maghreb as a recent report identified a route used by migrants fleeing Algeria, making their way across dangerous waters to reach Spain. Many, of course, don’t make it
In the face of a “wall of indifference”, approaching 400 people people a year have been lost since 2018 along a little-watched Algerian Mediterranean migrant route .
Spain’s Caminando Fronteras says that in these four years, more than 1,500 people died or went missing trying to cross on boats from Algeria to Spain.
A report titled “Wall of Indifference” by the non-governmental organisation says at least 464 people died or went missing last year while attempting to reach Spain by crossing the Western Mediterranean from Algeria.
It said there is “limited knowledge of this route connecting the Northern coast of Algeria with Eastern Andalusia and Murcia, the coast of the Levant and the Balearic Isles [in Spain]”.
The Caminando Frontera organisation says that over the past five years, that more than 11,200 migrants, an average of six people a day, have died trying to reach Spain by sea from Algeria.
The report, the NGO said, was created by its “collective” with the help of “migrants, family networks, community leaders, civic organisations and representatives from the public administration.”
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Caminando Fronteras says it focuses on migrants’ rights. Its work includes the tracking of deaths and disappearances primarily en route to Spain in the Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean between northwestern Africa and the Canary Islands.
The NGO, specialized in intervention and analysis of migration in the Western Mediterranean, describes itself as “a Collective that defends people’s and migrant’s rights. It was founded in 2022, the result of a synergy of different human rights defenders, located in different territories of the Euro-African border.” This route is second mostly deadly route after the one for the Canary Islands”.
According to the report, the Algerian migration route is the least known one along the Western Euro-African border. “Despite the limited knowledge of this route connecting the Northern coast of Algeria with Eastern Andalusia and Murcia, the coast of the Levant and the Balearic Isles, it is the second deadliest route after the one for the Canary islands for the past five years”.
Arab Weekly/Agencies/Caminando Fronteras
