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At least 300 people traveling in three boats from Senegal to Spain are missing, a Spanish aid group said Monday, raising concern about their fate along one of the deadliest sea routes for migrants.
Two boats departed from Mbour city on June 23 carrying about 100 people and a third left the southern town of Kafountine four days later with approximately 200 people, said Helena Maleno Garzon, coordinator for Walking Borders (Caminando Fronteras).
“The most important thing is to find those people. There are many people missing in the sea, this isn’t normal, we need more planes to look for them,” she told The Associated Press.
There has been no contact with the boats since their departure, she said. A spokesperson for Spain’s marine rescue service, who was not authorized to speak to the media, said it was alerted about one missing boat on July 5 and was looking for the vessel. She said they had no knowledge of the two missing boats.
The Atlantic migration route is one of the deadliest in the world, with nearly 800 people dying or going missing in the first half of this year, according to Walking Borders.
In recent years the Canary Islands has become one of the main destinations for people trying to reach Spain, with a peak of more than 23,000 migrants arriving in 2020, according to Spain’s interior ministry. In the first six months of this year, more than 7,000 migrants and refugees reached the Canaries.
Boats that go missing often aren’t documented. Some are never found or are discovered across the world years later. Earlier this year, an AP investigation found that in 2021 at least seven migrant boats from northwest Africa, likely trying to reach the Canary Islands, drifted to the Caribbean and Brazil.
The boats mainly travel from Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania, with fewer coming from Senegal, the Spanish aid group said. However, since June at least 19 boats from Senegal have arrived in the Canary Islands, it said.
Many factors such as ailing economies, a lack of jobs, extremist violence, political unrest and the impact of climate change push migrants to risk their lives on overcrowded boats to reach the Canaries. Last month in Senegal, at least 23 people were killed during weeks of protests between opposition supporters and police.
Daw Demba’s 19 and 24 year old sons left on one of the boats from Mbour in June to try and pull the family out of poverty, she said.
The 48-year-old discovered her sons’ secret plot to leave days before and tried to convince them not to, but they assured her it would be safe because the captain had taken the trip safely multiple times, she said.
“I am desperate to hear the voices of my sons. I am convinced they are still alive … Every moment every second, I am still believing,” she said through tears on the phone with AP from her home in Mbour.
Before they left she armed the boys, Massou Seck and Serigne Galaye Seck, with traditional spiritual items, including a bottle of water that had been blessed and Quranic paper with their names written on it for protection.
The missing boats follow one of the deadliest migrant drownings last month, in which more than 500 people are presumed dead off the coast of Greece. Criticism has mounted over Europe’s years-long failure to prevent such tragedies.
Maleno of the Spanish aid group said she has been in contact with the Moroccan, Spanish and Mauritanian marines and that more needs to be done to look for the missing boats.
“Imagine if there (were) 300 American people missing at sea. What (would) happen? Many planes will look for them,” she said.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – Associated Press)
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