Shipwreck off Senegal kills dozens as Canaries declare migrant emergency
By AMELIA NIERENBERG, SAIKOU JAMMEH and CARLOS BARRAGÁN
On one side of the water, a nation is in mourning. On the other, alarms are sounding.
The dueling reactions in Senegal and the Canary Islands came after dozens of Senegalese migrants trying to reach Europe died when their boat capsized last week. Their deaths along one of the world’s riskiest migration routes occurred at a moment when arrivals to Europe are down overall but still overwhelming local officials and dominating the political debate.
The Senegalese authorities said Monday that at least 39 bodies had been recovered off the shore of the West African nation, where stubbornly high unemployment has driven many young men to attempt dangerous sea crossings to Europe in recent years.
More than 100 people were on board the boat that capsized Friday, according to Senegal’s interior ministry. A local official, Ndeye Nguénar Mbodj, said the migrants had been hoping to reach Spain, and she warned Monday that the death toll could rise. One person was rescued and others swam to shore, but it was unclear how many others had made it or were missing, she explained.
Many migrants try to reach Europe by sea in the fall, when conditions in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic can be more favorable. The Greek coast guard said it recovered 20 bodies from the Mediterranean on Monday alone. Last month, at least 139 people died in a capsizing near Djibouti, one of the deadliest shipwrecks ever recorded on that route. Another popular crossing runs from West Africa to Spain, often via the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain about 600 miles to the north.
That’s where authorities were scrambling to address a spike in the number of migrants reaching one island, El Hierro, in the Spanish archipelago. More than 5,000 migrants have arrived on El Hierro over the past nine days, local authorities said Monday. They declared a state of emergency to unlock funding for a response on the island.
El Hierro has about 12,000 residents. While it regularly receives migrants, Alfonso Cabello, a government spokesperson, said the island had never received so many in such a short time.
The Spanish government said it had deployed state resources to respond to the crisis. It did not provide further details, although local news outlets reported that the air force had been mobilized to transfer migrants from the island to mainland Spain.
Despite the tragedy off Senegal and the consternation in the Canaries, European officials cautioned that illegal border crossings into the European Union had sharply declined over the past two years. In fact, data from the EU border agency shows that such border crossings along what is called the “Western Africa route,” which includes the Canary Islands, were down through September compared with the previous year.
Still, the route remains one of the world’s deadliest. The International Organization for Migration said at least 454 people died or disappeared there between Jan. 1 and Oct. 26 this year, and it warned that the true toll was most likely higher.
“Many boats disappear without survivors,” it said in a statement.
Migration remains a particularly potent political concern in Europe, especially as the continent approaches a year of important elections.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain has positioned his country as welcoming toward migrants, bucking a European trend, and started a program this year to grant legal status to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered illegally.
His political opponents used that as ammunition when more than 80,000 migrants crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa in July, setting off a humanitarian crisis that was compounded by the government’s slow response.
Now, with less than three weeks before snap elections in the country, the situation on El Hierro has become a new political cudgel as the prime minister trails in the polls.
Right-wing leaders in Spain were quick to say that the situation on the island showed that Sánchez was incapable of controlling the country’s borders and drew parallels to the Ceuta crisis.
The International Organization for Migration told The New York Times on Monday that, while “overall arrivals” were lower in Europe this year, smaller islands like El Hierro still could face “significant operational challenges.”
“Above all, this remains a humanitarian emergency,” the agency said, calling the Atlantic migration route to the Canaries “extremely dangerous.”
That route accounted for 18% of all arrivals to Europe this year, according to the organization. And Senegalese migrants make up the largest number of arrivals, according to Chris Borowski, a spokesperson for Frontex, the European Union’s border and coast guard agency.
While many spend days at sea, countless others don’t make it.
The vessel that capsized off the coast of Senegal on Friday was first spotted by that country’s navy, according to Aliou Bayal Sow, a local activist involved in the rescue. He said in an interview that the boat had been trying to return to shore when it capsized not far from Kébémer, a town north of the capital, Dakar.
President Bassirou Diomaye Faye of Senegal — who, at 46, is one of Africa’s youngest leaders — expressed “profound sorrow” and sent condolences to the families of the victims. He reiterated a campaign promise to increase opportunities for youth in Senegal, where about 23.5% of people between ages 15 and 34 are unemployed, according to estimates from the national statistics agency.
“No one,” he added Sunday in a post on social media, “should have to set out to sea with the ocean as their only horizon.”
