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Nov
16
2023
By CORINA PONS, HORACI GARCIA and BORJA SUAREZ
Migrant children treated like adults as record influx overwhelms Canary Islands

Migrant children treated like adults as record influx overwhelms Canary Islands

WORLD
ORPHANED during a coup in his homeland Guinea, teenager Moussa Camara took to sea in a wooden boat with 240 other migrants, enduring an 11-day voyage, half of it without food and fresh water, before reaching the Canary Islands. Twenty people died en route, their bodies dropped in the sea, the travellers said, more victims of one of the world's most perilous migrant routes. Yet when Camara made it on October 27 exhausted, famished and nursing sores from the sun, another problem beset him: police registered him as an adult and he was not allowed into a centre for minors…
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Jul
14
2023
By The African Mirror
Senegal disputes reports 300 migrants lost at sea, migrant group disagrees

Senegal disputes reports 300 migrants lost at sea, migrant group disagrees

NEWS
AUTHORITIES in Senegal have disputed reports that 300 people travelling on three migrant boats from Senegal to Spain's Canary Islands disappeared last week as "unfounded" and said hundreds had been rescued in Moroccan territorial waters. But the migrant aid group that originally reported the missing boats, Walking Borders, said it believed those on the three boats were still missing. Walking Borders on Sunday said two boats, one carrying about 65 people and the other with between 50 and 60 on board, had been missing for 15 days since they left Senegal for Spain. A third boat left on June 27 with…
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Jul
10
2023
By The African Mirror
At least 300 migrants missing at sea near Spanish Canary Islands, aid group says

At least 300 migrants missing at sea near Spanish Canary Islands, aid group says

NEWS
AT least 300 people who were travelling on three migrant boats from Senegal to Spain's Canary Islands have disappeared, migrant aid group Walking Borders said. Two boats, one carrying about 65 people and the other with between 50 and 60 on board, have been missing for 15 days since they left Senegal to try to reach Spain, Helena Maleno of Walking Borders told Reuters. A third boat left Senegal on June 27 with about 200 people aboard. The families of those on board have not heard from them since they left, Maleno said. All three boats left Kafountine in the…
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May
28
2023
By The African Mirror
Spain probing African migrant voyage after reported Moroccan gunfire

Spain probing African migrant voyage after reported Moroccan gunfire

NEWS
SPAIN said it was probing reports of casualties among a group of migrants trying to reach the Canary Islands from Africa after a charity cited survivors as saying Moroccan soldiers opened fire killing at least one of them. The Moroccan authorities did not immediately respond to emailed and telephoned requests for comment on the allegation that its forces shot at the group of more than 40 migrants as they sought to depart on a dinghy early on Tuesday morning. Reuters could not independently verify the report. "We are investigating," a Spanish police source told Reuters, referring to reports of injuries.…
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Jun
19
2021
By The African Mirror
Dozens of African migrants rescued after boat runs aground on Spain’s Lanzarote

Dozens of African migrants rescued after boat runs aground on Spain’s Lanzarote

NEWS
BORJA SUAREZ MORE than 40 African migrants were rescued after their boat ran aground on the rocky coast of Lanzarote in Spain's Canary Islands, emergency services said, while over 100 people on two more boats made it safely to other islands. At least three people died and at least two more were missing, including a six-year old girl. Rescue workers with a helicopter were searching the coast around Lanzarote's northern region of Muelle de Orzola for them on Friday morning. Local resident Marcos Lemes, who was first on the scene and alerted emergency services, told Reuters he had begun,g people…
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Apr
06
2021
By The African Mirror
African migrants desert official camp in Spain

African migrants desert official camp in Spain

NEWS
BORJA SUAREZ DOZENS of migrants have set up a makeshift camp in Spain's Canary Islands, leaving an official, much larger camp where they said they had received poor food, scant medical attention and did not have enough showers. In the face of soaring levels of migration from Africa, authorities on the Canaries have resorted to housing thousands in converted former military facilities. More than 1,500 have been living in the Las Raices camp, a former barracks near the city of La Laguna on Tenerife for the last two months. "The camp is really bad," said a Senegalese migrant who gave…
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Mar
28
2021
By The African Mirror
‘2,276 died trying to reach Europe’

‘2,276 died trying to reach Europe’

NEWS
MORE than 2,200 people perished at sea trying to reach Europe last year, more than a third on the increasingly busy route to Spain's Canary Islands, the U.N. migration agency has said. The true toll is probably far higher as aid groups reported at least five "invisible shipwrecks" that were never confirmed as they left no survivors, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. In all, 2,276 migrants are known to have drowned while 86,448 arrived by sea in Europe in 2020, IOM said in a report. A further 52,037 migrants were intercepted at sea. "Of particular concern is the…
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Mar
27
2021
By The African Mirror
Three die, dozens rescued as migrant boat capsizes off Spain’s Tenerife

Three die, dozens rescued as migrant boat capsizes off Spain’s Tenerife

NEWS
SPAIN's coast guard rescued nearly 40 African migrants from waters off the coast of Tenerife yesterday after their boat capsized during the dangerous crossing to the Canary Islands, which saw a tenfold surge in such traffic last year. Two women and one man were confirmed dead on arrival at the port, an emergency services spokeswoman said, while two women were transferred to hospital with slight injuries. Red Cross workers in masks and goggles carried several young children ashore and helped injured adults to a dockside medical tent at the resort town of Los Cristianos on the island's southern coast. The…
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Dec
08
2020
By The African Mirror
What’s driving the deadly migrant surge from Senegal to the Canary Islands?

What’s driving the deadly migrant surge from Senegal to the Canary Islands?

HUMAN RIGHTS
RICCI SHRYOCK LIKE many compatriots, Abdou Diakaté didn’t feel he had much choice when he boarded a long, wooden boat on the Senegalese coast in October with around 100 others and set off into the Atlantic Ocean. The boat was heading for the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off West Africa that has seen a surge in migration this year.  The Atlantic maritime route, considered the most dangerous sea passage for Africans trying to reach Europe, had been mostly dormant since 2006, when a record 31,000 asylum seekers and migrants made the crossing. In 2019, just under 2,700 people arrived…
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Nov
19
2020
By The African Mirror
After frantic search, Moroccan woman finds brother stranded on Canary Islands

After frantic search, Moroccan woman finds brother stranded on Canary Islands

NEWS
ON November 7, Sarah Bettache received an unexpected phone call from her brother Ahmed, who told her he was on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria. Two days earlier, the 19-year-old had left his native Morocco on a rickety boat and embarked on a dangerous journey to reach the Canary Islands archipelago, around 100 km (60 miles) away. Like a record number of other migrants this year, he was seeking a better future in Europe. Bettache, who is 27 and lives in France where she has citizenship, had no warning of her brother's drastic action, and nor did the rest…
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