Fifty people have died when a canoe capsizes who had left on January 2 for the Canary Islands from Mauritania, including 44 Pakistani emigrants, as warned this Thursday by the Spanish NGO ‘Caminando Fronteras’.
Its spokesperson, Helena Maleno, explained that her organization has just learned of the tragedy, since the Moroccan authorities managed to rescue on Wednesday 36 survivors of that same canoe.
The first information handled by the NGO indicates that the boat had left with 86 occupants, although it does not rule out that there could be more, and that it had already spent 13 days at sea. A minimum of three women were on board, including a teenager who has survived.
For its part, the Spanish Maritime Rescue service has no information about this shipwreck, because it was not its means that intervened in the rescue of the survivors, but those of Morocco.
After hearing the news, the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijohas once again urged Madrid and Brussels to act. “You cannot just be witnesses. The State and Europe have to act. The Atlantic cannot continue to be the graveyard of Africa. They cannot continue turning their backs on this humanitarian drama. My regret for the death of the last fifty victims,” says Clavijo, on his X social network account.
For months now, Spanish police authorities have confirmed that more and more emigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Bangladesh are risking their lives on the Canary Route, almost always in canoes that set sail from Mauritania.
The event is under investigation, because people of these nationalities (and those from Somalia, who are also beginning to appear on the Canary Route) have until now mostly tried to enter Europe through the Mediterranean or the Balkan route.
However, the figures are still modest on one route, the Canary Islands, which moved last year almost 47,000 people. According to data from the European Border and Coast Agency (Frontex), from January to November 2024, 221 Pakistanis, 54 Bangladeshis, 47 Somalis, thirteen Syrians, twelve Afghans and one Palestinian arrived in the Canary Islands in canoes and boats.
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