On October 16, a canoe surprised the quay of La Restinga. Last year, this port of El Hierro continued to receive precarious boats with hundreds of people on board. But that night, something caught the attention of emergency services. Of the 75 occupants traveling aboard this Mauritanian barge, 63 were Asian. Additionally, among the survivors was an entire family of ten Afghan refugees: a man, his two wives and the seven children from both marriages. The escalation of violence in countries of origin, climate change, as well as migration policies and the business of border control have pushed nationals from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria and Yemen to take the route of boats and cayucos to the Canary Islands.
The family left their home in 2021, with the return of the Taliban to power. After two years traveling to different parts of the country, they moved to Iran and then traveled to the African continent. From Guinea they went to Mauritania and, in the capital, they boarded a canoe on the night of October 9, as reported by the Efe agency. According to the UNHCR, Afghans have been fleeing the country since 1979. In this context of unfinished conflicts, this UN agency warns that half of the country’s population is in a situation of extreme hunger, with six million people threatened with famine. Furthermore, the lives of women and girls have lost their value. As UNHCR points out, most secondary schools for girls remain closed, many girls have been forced into marriage and many women have lost their jobs.
Although after the fundamentalist group returned to power, Spain organized evacuation flights for people whose lives were in danger, thousands of Afghans remained stuck in the country. It is for this reason that the Spanish Commission for Assistance to Refugees (CEAR) demands the opening of regular and safe routes to Europe, humanitarian visas and agile family reunification processes.
According to Frontex data seen by this newspaper, between January and September 2024, 109 Pakistanis, 13 Syrians, eight nationals from Yemen and 45 from Bangladesh arrived in the Canary Islands. The number of Afghans rescued on the West African route is not included in the file analyzed. “It is undoubtedly the result of new trends in migratory movements such as intensification, diversification, globalization and feminization,” explains Barbara Rostecka, doctor in sociology and professor at the University of La Laguna (ULL) .
In the case of Afghanistan, the reduction of protection possibilities in Iran and Pakistan influences the reorientation of travel towards the European Union. These two countries have welcomed 2.7 and 1.6 million Afghans respectively over the last thirty years. “They let them stay if they demonstrated their right to stay,” recalls the technical secretary of the Cultural Chair of Globalization, Migrations and New Citizenships attached to the ULL. Today, forced returns have increased. “When people feel they can no longer stay in the area, they look for other options,” adds the expert.
For its part, Yemen has been plunged into civil war for nine years. Amnesty International defines the situation in the country as “one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world” with 4.56 million displaced people and more than 70,000 refugees and asylum seekers, according to the UNHCR. Paradoxically, this year Spain imposed a transit visa on Yemenis, a requirement which, as CEAR denounces, prevents them from formalizing their asylum request at Spanish airports in a legal and secure manner. The entity considers in a press release that this measure is a contradiction, since the Yemeni is one of the nationalities with the highest degree of recognition of international protection in Spain.
The shattered dreams of 12 Pakistanis in Barranco Seco
At the Foreign Internment Center (CIE) of Barranco Seco, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, there remain twelve Pakistanis who arrived in the same canoe as the Afghan family. Chaplain Víctor Domínguez visits the center once a week and says the widespread feelings among Pakistanis are fear of deportation and frustration. “Fear because later they will experience dangerous situations. Furthermore, they feel that their dreams are shattered, because they are people who risked their lives at sea,” he laments.
All Pakistani migrants in the CIE have applied for asylum, but if their applications are not resolved favorably, they will likely be deported to Mauritania, a country located more than 7,000 kilometers from Pakistan. The bilateral agreement between Mauritania and Spain provides that the African state will readmit a national of a third state provided that he proves that he has transited through its territory.
Domínguez points out that this group of Pakistanis, mostly very young boys, tried their luck in Europe because of the poverty they suffered in their country. They moved away from the classic route and opted for a much more remote but, they say, safer route. “We told them this route was more complicated. They tell us no, that the Mediterranean is more dangerous, where their lives are more in danger,” he explains.
Historically, the Pakistanis have chosen the Mediterranean and Balkan routes to join the European Union. In 2023, 80% of them reached the European continent via Italy, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This itinerary involves traveling by plane first to the United Arab Emirates and then to Egypt or Libya. From the latter country, people cross the central Mediterranean to reach Italy. A trip that can cost up to $5,000.
Libya, one of the main transit countries for Asian migrants in recent years, has been accused by some non-governmental organizations and several journalistic investigations of torture and human rights violations against the migrant population. People attempting to cross the Mediterranean in precarious boats are being intercepted on the high seas by Libyan rescue forces in EU-funded operations. On their return to Libya, detention centers await them in which all kinds of violations are committed: “Refugees and migrants in Libya, detained or not, are systematically subjected to a series of abuses by militias, armed groups and security forces,” said Amnesty International. The same organization specified that in 2023, nearly 4,000 foreigners remained arbitrarily detained in the country’s detention centers.
The effect of climate change
An IOM report on Pakistanis in Europe says the majority come from two regions: Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, an area to the west of the country bordering Afghanistan in permanent conflict. At the same time, Pakistan is a country subject to the consequences of climate change. “Recent extreme weather events illustrate the extreme climate vulnerability faced by Pakistan,” Amnesty International said. Heavy snowfalls and floods, such as the one in 2022, which the UN says has killed more than 1,700 people and affected more than 30 million people, have endangered food security, increased poverty and the spread of diseases, such as malaria or malaria. typhoid fever.
Bangladesh is also suffering from the effects of climate change. A 2021 CEAR report concludes that it is one of the countries most prone to natural disasters in the world, which has already forced more than 4.4 million people into forced displacement. “It is estimated that millions of Bangladeshis will be internally displaced due to environmental disasters in the coming years, but here in Europe the richest will arrive as always,” Rostecka anticipates.
Over the years, Bangladeshis have reached European soil through the Central Mediterranean route to reach European soil. According to the UNHCR, earlier this year, Bangladesh was the main country of origin for migrants arriving in Italy via Libya, a country already accused of violating migrants’ human rights.
The business of borders
Strengthened border surveillance determines the routes migrants can take. “The evolution of regulations, such as visas, fines for transport companies, readmission agreements and the parallel emergence of institutional structures like Frontex, or even certain NGOs, created to control the established order, do not succeed only to legitimize very diverse forms of legal violence against migrants,” underlines the doctor in sociology.
In this sense, in 2023, an agreement on migration control was signed between Tunisia and the EU with the aim of promoting measures to combat irregular migration and which resulted in a disbursement of 900 million euros. This agreement has had a particular impact in Italy, where arrivals in one year have been halved: until October this year, just over 50,000 people had arrived, while in 2023, 105,561 migrants have landed, according to Frontex data. However, Tunisia is also in the spotlight as a country that violates human rights.
According to Amnesty International, Tunisian authorities abandoned asylum-seeking migrants in the country’s desert areas and during high-sea rescues, Tunisian security forces put people’s lives in danger. The same organization emphasizes that this systematic violation is directed in particular against black people. In fact, the country’s president, Kais Said, even said that the country was at risk of losing its Arab culture and becoming “just an African country”, due to the presence of sub-Saharan migrants. His remarks triggered a racist wave in the streets against the black population.
Last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged copying Italian President Giorgia Meloni’s plan and creating refugee centers outside the European Union’s borders. Italy has created migrant identification and repatriation centers in Albania. Among those sent to this facility were Bangladeshi nationals. However, Italian authorities had to deport some of them to the country after a court in Rome concluded that Bangladesh was unsafe. For Rostecka, political decisions “influence the reconfiguration of routes and lead to a grim scale of risk and human loss, but they do not and cannot control the survival impulse of entire peoples.”
