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AT LEAST 951 refugees died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first six months of 2023, a Spanish migrant rights group said today.
Walking Borders said the total includes 112 women and 49 children. The organisation compiles its figures from families of migrants and rescue statistics.
It said in a report issued on Thursday that official Spanish figures show that 13 more people died than in the first six months of last year.
Spain’s Interior Ministry says 12,192 people arrived by boat in the first six months, 4 per cent fewer than in the same period last year.
Walking Borders blamed countries such as Spain and Morocco for a lack of co-ordination and failing to conduct rescue operations in time.
It gave the example of a June 21 incident in which 24 people were rescued and two bodies were retrieved after a boat sank in waters off Morocco’s coast, but 36 migrants disappeared.
It said a Moroccan rescue ship did not arrive until 10 hours after the first warnings were sent out.
More recently, Walking Borders and another group, Alarm Phone, reported that 55 migrants who departed around June 22 from southern Morocco for Spain’s Canary Islands went missing when their boat sank.
