More than 10,000 migrants perished – an average of 30 a day – in 2024 while trying to reach Spain, NGO says in new report.More than 10,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea this year, a report released by a Spanish migration rights group has revealed, the most since it began keeping a tally in 2007.
On average, that means 30 migrants died every day this year attempting to reach the country by boat, the NGO Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) said on Thursday.
Overall deaths rose by 58 percent compared with last year, the report added.
Tens of thousands of migrants left West Africa in 2024 for the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago close to the African coast that has increasingly been used as a stepping stone to continental Europe.
Caminando Fronteras said most of the 10,457 deaths recorded up until December 15 took place along that crossing, the so-called Atlantic route – considered one of the world’s most dangerous.
The organisation compiles its figures from families of migrants and official statistics of those rescued. It included 1,538 children and 421 women among the dead. April and May were the deadliest months, the report said. Advertisement
It blamed the use of flimsy boats and increasingly dangerous routes as well as the insufficient capacity of maritime rescue services for the surge in deaths.
“These figures are evidence of a profound failure of rescue and protection systems. More than 10,400 people dead or missing in a single year is an unacceptable tragedy,” the group’s founder, Helena …
