In the most tragic year since the return of the Canary Islands migration route, the humanitarian crisis accumulated in the islands can be explained in several ways. But one fact speaks for itself: 55.7% of the 30,827 “undocumented” migrants who arrived during the first nine months of 2024 came from Mauritania. A total of 17,180 people.
Until a few years ago, the agreement between this country and Spain It was “a model of mafia cooperation and control.” even for the European Union.
The immense Mauritanian territory, an immensely desert and sparsely populated surfaceand with a coastline of 754 uninterrupted kilometers facing the Spanish archipelago, is the main focus of the “migratory emergency” which has plunged the Canary Islands into a “humanitarian crisis”.
“Something happened in Mauritania which no longer cooperatesthe wars in neighboring countries may have something to do with it,” explains a humanitarian on the ground.
“They saw that extortion worked for Morocco and they want to increase their share of the pie,” says a member of the Canary Islands Parliament.
“The government gave up immigration policy, confronts and combines its good speech with inaction in the face of crises for their internal strategic objectives“concludes an opposition leader.
Whatever the causes, whether they are or a combination of them, the fact is that Mauritania has become a problem.
Spain is left alone within the European Union in the face of the so-called “imaginative solutions” advocated by Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission, inspired by the action of the Greek government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the Italian of Giorgia Meloni. The first comes from the European PP; the second, took command of the conservatives of the ECR and began to converge with the traditional Christian democratic center right.
Or is it the other way around? Are the popular those who have hardened your border control policy and your request for returns? Or is it the ultraconservative leader who softenedand have you understood that it is necessary to invest in the countries of origin to promote opportunities there, which do not invite a fatal leap into the sea towards a prosperous Europe?
In any case, Pedro Sanchez He has no one to follow him, as was demonstrated at the last European Council. His last African tour, at the end of August, was a collection of “inconsistencies to say the least”, explains a political source in Brussels. “In Mauritania, Spain is promoted as a migratory destination; the day after, in Gambia and Senegal, demanded the expulsion of all illegal immigrants that it reached the Spanish coast… makes no sense.”
Sánchez is accused Alberto Nuñez Feijóo to “not have an immigration policy” and to represent the The “least humanitarian government in the EU” for this reason.
“We cannot go to the countries of origin to say one thing and the opposite, we are only showing a lack of judgment,” adds a source from the PP leadership, with a mixture of real concern and distaste. legitimate political interest. “The EU, and Spain in particular, clearly needs migrationbut another thing is to promote migration without measure, offering 250,000 jobs a year in a country that has gone from an example of a solution to a major source of your problem.
Of the 17,180 migrants who arrived in the Canary Islands from Mauritania, more than 5,200 did so in the first month of the yearin January. The island’s president had been there for months, Fernando Clavijoshouting about this migration crisis which is approaching a “humanitarian emergency”. In February, there were more than 3,500 people and continued with ups and downs downward trend until summer, with only 740 in July.
But now In August, it stood at more than 1,500 irregulars from Mauritania. and in September, after Sánchez’s visitit gushed until it touched the 2,000 people, almost 70 per day.
As a political consequence, Spain lost its leadership as an EU border country. The agreement with Mauritania was pioneered in 1997, despite enormous criticism of the president. José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. But today it is essentially the Garibaldi map by Meloni. So far this year, Italy reduced by 60% the arrival of irregulars from Tunisia and Libya. For his part, Spain suffers an equivalent increase, of 59.1%. And more than half arrive from Mauritania.
Data and deaths
By cross-referencing official statistics, with very long Excel tables, to which this newspaper had access, we can draw the origin of each boat, whether a boat, canoe or inflatable raft; his job with men, women, minors and unaccompanied minors; which the arrival island; and the country of origin from which human traffickers freed them.
What does not appear are the impossible data: those of the countless boats that left and never arrived, nor those of the men, women, boys and girls who remained on the way. Those that the Pope Francisbefore concluding his next trip to the islands, described as those who “they cover the sea with corpses”.
According to the Red Cross, between 5 and 8% of migrants leaving Africa die or disappear on the route to the Canaries. That is to say that some 3,000 people are believed to have died this year alone in the waters of the Atlantic, in the deadliest road of all those used by the mafias, in search of a better future in Spain.
According to Canarian government sources, who cite the NGOs with which it works, “an emigrant dies every 45 minutes” at sea.
But among those who arrive, the gender profile is telling: for every immigrant woman, 17 men travel on each boat and three unaccompanied minors (menas). And on average, one in three of them arrives with a baby on board.
That is to say 30,827 people landed in the Canary Islands between January and September, 24,791 were men, 80%. Around the 13% are menasfor a total of 4,138 minor boys and girls. AND less than 5% are women, no more than 1,469. To which must be added 429 minors arrived with their mother towards the islands.
More migrants than inhabitants
HAS Gran Canaria have arrived 87 ships So far this year, almost 10 per month, or one every three days.
In Lanzarote have arrived 76 boatscanoes or inflatable boats during these nine months, two per week.
They were 47 boats which were moored at the port in Tenerife and in Fuerteventura from January to September. AND new on the small island of La Gomera.
But looking at the map of the Canary Islands, one can logically wonder why the main arrival island is El Hierro, with 189 ships in nine months, that is 21 every monthmore than five per week.
With an average of 80 migrants on each boat, this represents more than 400 new neighbors per week. That’s around 1,500 new ones every month. “Sometimes it is impossible to keep the island hospital open”explains a member of the Canarian government. “If a boat arrives very full or with people in very poor condition, the help is not enough… and we must stop serving the natives“.
The small island received 14,962 migrants so far this yearuntil September 30. That’s to say, many more people than registered inhabitants, 11,659. And in reality, almost double the actual residents, according to the Canarian Government, which estimates that the actual residents are not much higher than the actual residents. 8,000 people.
According to NGOs that work with migrants, this is the case “because it’s the cheapest route for the mafias”. Ocean currents lead there from most of the northwest coast of Africa. “But it is also the riskiest, because beyond El Hierro there is nothing. Just the immensity of the ocean“.
Maneuvering these small boats filled with people to the point of risking sinking is very complicated, experts add. “That is why, 100% of people landed in recent years are rescued peoplea canoe or a boat almost never arrives without having been seen beforehand.” The humanitarian aspect therefore mixes with the control of patrol boats. But anyone who is not seen arriving is lost at sea.
The Spain-Mauritania agreement
In the early 2000s, Spain experienced its first major wave of mass immigration. There was money, opportunities, good salaries and even better prospects for the so-called “Spanish miracle”.
In 2006a new migratory route appeared unexpectedly, which until then no one imagined possible between Mauritania and the Canary Islands. It is the most dangerous and deadliest route of all those imagined by the mafias between Africa and European territory.
It is for this reason that it has only been used sporadically, and not systematically: in 2024, 30 years since the arrival of the first boat in the islands and 25 years since the first recorded shipwreck. But no one paid attention to it or did it until, suddenly, in a single year We went from zero to 31,678 migrants on the coasts of the Canaries.
At that time, he reigned José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Spain. The socialist president had only been in Moncloa for two years, at the head of a country which continued to respect the slogan of his predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar: “Spain is doing well”… so much so that it is gradually approaching the economic levels which would have given it the right to request a seat in the G-7.
Surprisingly, the canoe crisis It was just that, a crisis. Because in 2007 Arrivals have already been reduced by a third (12,748). and in 2009the number of undocumented landed on the islands was practically a testimony (2,246).
Despite criticism from the opposition and the press, which They accused him of “underselling” immigration control and “moving the border to Africa.”the Zapatero government invented with Mauritania, at the origin of the problem, a new “model of collaboration in countries of origin and transit”.
The image of European with briefcases of millions has occupied the imagination, because Spain has invested hundreds of millions in a new approach to cooperation: presence of Spanish agents, training and joint patrols with the premises; study of needs and delivery of equipment and prevention materials and the persecution of traffickers; in addition to the protocols consistent judicial and police practices with human rights.
Over the next decade, everything worked perfectly. And Spain’s agreement with Mauritania has become an example for others with Senegal, Gambia and even Morocco. The EU examined the model and, adapted to the terrible circumstances, he applied it in the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016when land routes leave Afghanistan and Syria The influx of people via Greece, the Balkans and the east of the Union has increased.
But something happened with Sánchez coming to power, in 2018the Canary Islands route thus went from practical non-existence to reactivation. First discreetly then suddenly, coming back en masse: 23,023 people in 2020; others 22,316 In 2021; something less, 15,682 In 2022; and again accelerates enormously in the “fateful” 2023during which arrivals of irregular migrants suddenly almost tripled until the 39,910 people.
