Gran Canaria, Aug. 11 (BNA): Standing in a cemetery for abandoned boats, Mohamed Fann picks up a West African franc from the land and shakes from the painful memory of his trip from Senegal to the Canary Islands.
After a grueling overland journey and months of waiting, smugglers ushered the 33-year-old carpenter onto a flimsy wooden ship with more than two dozen others to set sail from the Moroccan city of Dakhla — but the fuel ran out, far from the Spanish archipelago, Reuters reports. .
A hungry and thirsty man died on board, while the rest was saved by a Spanish rescue boat. Fine, who had barely eaten in three days at sea and used his water bottle to save the leaking boat, cried like never before when he reached Gran Canaria.
“It’s the hardest thing that has ever happened to me and I will never do it again,” he said.
These harrowing experiences are common on one of the busiest and most dangerous routes to Europe for Africans fleeing poverty, conflict and hunger exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the detrimental impact of the Ukraine war.
According to government data, two-thirds of African migrants entering Spain now pass through the Canary Islands. Some 9,589 people have made it there so far in 2022 – a 27% increase over the same period last year.
On the map, the Seven Islands are just pokes in the vast Atlantic Ocean off West Africa. Fishermen steer unstable boats with often unsuitable engines. Much is lost or drowned.
At least 1,000 people have died in those waters so far this year, according to the charity Walking Borders, as tens of thousands of European tourists flock to the Canaries largely unaware of the tragedies unfolding near their holidays.
“People are panicking in Africa after the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and inflation, because they are too dependent on food from abroad,” said Sokina Ndiaye, leader of the Migrant Support Network on the island of Tenerife.
“I’m afraid it will take many risks.”
despair at sea
The last to do so was fisherman El Hadj Diouf: he boarded a boat with 67 others from southern Senegal that ended up on Tenerife six days later. He said he respected his father’s wish that the family escape the poverty caused by the scarcity of fishing due to industrial scale fishing.
Sometimes, he said, migrants lose their minds after grueling journeys from inland Africa and then on hot days catch fire in the open sea. “Some people cannot stand and jump into the sea. The boat cannot turn or stop to avoid capsizing, so it is impossible to save them.”
Dehydration, seasickness, and hypothermia are common.
But with the short route through the Strait of Gibraltar and other routes to southern Europe better through the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands are becoming an increasingly popular choice for desperate migrants despite the risks.
Activists said Morocco has cut off its flow through a deal with Spain, but many are still coming from Mali, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Nigeria.
In a report released this week by the Canary Islands’ booming migration route, the United Nations said 150 boat drivers were arrested last year but that the crime gangs behind them on the African coast were rarely targeted.
She added that many of the deaths go unnoticed, noting that boats often take a roundabout way to avoid search and rescue areas and mobile phone networks, but can then get caught in strong currents that carry them towards the Caribbean Sea.
The numbers may rise with calmer waters from September.
“No one can stop them,” said Fanny on Gran Canaria where abandoned colorful migrant boats contain tattered shoes, cans of sardines, plastic bottles and a life jacket.
“I am losing hope in my continent, Africa. What is happening is forcing you to leave (…) I heard some people say that it is better to get here on the verge of death than to stay in Africa.”
On the same day, Spanish rescue services were chasing a boat that was lost at sea off Mauritania and reportedly had 100 people on board. Days later, another boat with 61 people on board was rescued near the island: a 19-year-old boy was found dead on board.