PL | EN

Migrants are heading to Canary Islands

At least 140 people died at sea after a vessel that was heading to the Canary Islands, in Spain, sank off the Senegalese coast. It had left Mbour, a Senegal fishing village, carrying out about 200 people. Just 59 were rescued. It is the deadliest shipwreck recorded in 2020, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

This route between Africa and the Spanish archipelago through the Atlantic Ocean is considered one of the most dangerous. Including this tragedy, at least 414 people died there in 2020 according to IOM’s Missing Migrants Project. It is doubled than in 2019, as 210 fatalities were recorded. This route was often used in the past, as tens of thousands of people attempted this dangerous trip in the mid-2000s. Among the youth in Senegal, there was a play on words: “Barça ou barzakh”, meaning “Barcelona” (the football club) or “death”, regarding migrating.

In recent months there has been an increase in the number of boats trying again to reach Europe arriving at the Canary Islands. The Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR), explains that it is because new profiles of people are risking their lives on this route. If during the first months of 2020, they were predominantly people from Mali, now they are mainly people from Morocco and Senegal. They were affected economically by the pandemic due to the tourist closure. Just last weekend, more than 2,000 people arrived at the Canary Islands in 58 boats in less than 72 hours.

More about: Migration
Read also
Hybrid work, pay raises and the AI revolution in the labor market
Hybrid work, pay raises and the AI revolution in the labor market
According to the results of a yet unreviewed experiment at Trip.com, those employed in a hybrid work model were happier and less likely to leave the company than those who worked only in the office, and the overall productivity of both groups was the same. Meanwhile, a series of studies, for example, on call centre […]
India, China and Pakistan: rivalry for the Maldives and Kashmir
India, China and Pakistan: rivalry for the Maldives and Kashmir
India and China compete for the small but strategically important Maldives, offering infrastructure investments and financial resources. China needs a military presence in the Arabian Sea to secure access to oil from the Persian Gulf. India considers the Maldives as its sphere of influence in the Indian Ocean and wants to ensure that the Maldives […]
Women’s rights: France and positive changes in the USA
Women’s rights: France and positive changes in the USA
After France became the only country to guarantee the right to abortion in its constitution explicitly, other European countries are examining their abortion laws. In Italy, a 1978 law allows medical personnel to refuse to perform an abortion on moral grounds, which in practice often significantly limits access to the procedure and forces women to […]
Egypt, Cuba and Argentina’s fight against the economic crisis
Egypt, Cuba and Argentina’s fight against the economic crisis
In response to inflation and the decline in the purchasing power of the Egyptian pound in relation to the dollar, the inhabitants of Egypt are looking for a safe place to invest their assets, so they trade in gold, real estate and cars. The Egyptian authorities increased the aid agreement with the International Monetary Fund […]
Help in hopeless situations: football in the Gaza Strip and Nigerian courts
Help in hopeless situations: football in the Gaza Strip and Nigerian courts
The creators of the Nigerian app Gavel use technology and a network of volunteers to enable people to access pro bono legal services and give them a chance in the face of the country’s dysfunctional and corrupt justice system. In Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2022, Nigeria ranked 150th out of 180 countries, and […]
Previous issues