EU/Africa: Migrant deaths at sea persist as focus shifts onto the African mainland
01 November 2005
In the last quarter of 2005, there were a number of incidents at sea that resulted in the death of migrants.
* On 1 October, a shipwreck near Fuerteventura resulted in the confirmed death of three people and the disappearance of 14, presumed to have died, after their dinghy capsized during a rescue attempt by a commercial fishing boat.
* On 12 October, a migrant drowned as he attempted to swim to the shore after a dinghy crossing in Adra (Almería).
* On 31 October, a dinghy carrying over 50 migrants was intercepted by the
Guardia Civil Maritime Service and the Sea Rescue Service to the south of Adra, in which two men, one Moroccan and one sub-Saharan, had died.
* On 4 November, a small boat heading for Greece sank off the coast of Cesme (Turkey) resulting in 12 people dying and 18 disappearing.
* On 17 November, a shipwreck off the coast of Ragusa (Sicily) resulted in 9 confirmed deaths, and between 20 and 30 disappearing after falling into the sea.
* On 26 November, passengers of a dinghy which was intercepted to the south of Cabo de Gata (Almería) with one dead body on board, said that 22 migrants had fallen into the sea. After a search operation, they were declared missing, presumed dead.
* On 27 November, a tropical storm caused the shipwreck of a dinghy attempting the crossing from Morocco to the Canary Islands, 30 miles from the Moroccan coast, leading to the death of six people and 12 more being declared missing.
* On 30 November, the
Guardia Civil found a body in an advanced state of decomposition in Tarifa (Cádiz).
* On 19 December, at least 30 people died off the coast of Mauritania after the boat in which they embarked to attempt the crossing to the Canary Islands sank, and 14 people were rescued.
* On 24 December, a dead body was found floating in the water by
Guardia Civil officers in the province of San Roque (Cádiz). On the same day, a dinghy carrying 16 youths from the Western Sahara went missing during an attempt to reach the Canary Islands. This instance was reported by the NGO
Alter Forum as being the first attempt by Western Saharan youths to reach the Canary Islands in a dinghy, and an effect of "the terrible social and economic condition in the occupied territories" and of the persecution by the Moroccan army and police.
* On Christmas Day, the dead body of a 30-year-old Moroccan was found at sea in the province of Tarifa, alongside a float tied to plastic bins that were tied together. This was, presumably the apparatus he had put together to attempt the crossing.
* On 27 December 2005 the dead body of another Moroccan migrant was found by a scuba diver and retrieved by an underwater Sea Rescue team.
This list, which predominantly mentions deaths that occured during attempts to reach Spain, is not comprehensive, although it illustrates the large number of countries where these tragedies are occurring.
Ceuta and Melilla
Mass attempts by migrants to cross the border fences in the Spanish north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in September and October, and the death of at least 11 sub-Saharan Africans in two such incidents, in Ceuta on 28 and 29 September 2005, and in Ceuta on 6 October (when six migrants were shot), provide evidence of the effects of the EU's immigration policies and the increasing pressure exerted on countries of origin and transit to curb immigration flows. However, and in spite of the outrage that the events caused, this was neither unprecedented nor was it the end of the story, as a range of questionable practices were revealed.
The deaths of men in different incidents during the previous month, which included a national of Cameroon who, according to eye-witnesses, was shot with rubber bullets by members of the
Guardia Civil at point-blank range after climbing the fence in Ceuta, had caused concern. Nonetheless, internal investigations cleared members of the paramilita