The number of people killed trying to get there by sea tripled the figures for the previous year.
A year of tragedies in the western Mediterranean. According to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), at least 769 people lost their lives in 2018 while trying to reach Spanish shores, which is three times more than the previous year, when 224 died. The influx of migrants to the Peninsula, around 57,000 to which we must add another 6,500 by land, has far exceeded the figure recorded during the 2006 cayuco crisis, when 39,180 people arrived, almost in their entirety, on Canarian shores.
The number of people arriving on Andalusian shores exceeds the sum of the last eight years. Spain received almost half of all migrants (49.8%) from all irregular arrivals in the Mediterranean to Italy, Greece, Cyprus Malta and Spain itself. The average number of arrivals is around 160 people a day, and 2019 has started at a very similar pace.
At least 769 people lost their lives in 2018 during the journey to Spain
The data is staggering. The number of deaths in the western Mediterranean has risen by 243% compared to last year, and is 30 times higher than that recorded four years ago in 2014, when there were 24 deaths. In all subsequent years, the hundred deaths have been exceeded, with a clear increase: 102 in 2015; 128 in 2016; 224 in 2017; until the brutal leap to almost 800 deaths in the year just ended. According to the figures, October was the month that recorded the most deaths on the southern border, with 144 deaths, followed by November, with 114 deaths recorded. At least 2,242 people have lost their lives trying to reach Europe via all the Mediterranean routes, with the central one having the highest number of deaths (1,306 people).
The IOM's Missing Migrants project collects these and many other data. Like the fact that the percentage of deaths out of the total number of migrants trying to reach Spain has grown, from 0.8% to 1.2%.
The situation has not taken the experts and those who dedicate part of their lives to helping migrants by surprise. From Andalucía, Acoge recalls that "we have known for a long time that this could happen. "The closure of other escape routes across the Mediterranean, to Greece or Italy, left the southern border of Spain as the only possibility and the mafias that traffic in people know the situation perfectly well."
La oenegé recalls that this 2018 marks thirty years since the appearance of the first migrant stranded on the Andalusian coast. "We are facing a situation that is not coyuntural, but forms part of 21st century society. Mientras no den den otro tipo de respuestas económicas, las migraciones van a seguir existiendo", he concludes.
Closure of ports, agreement with Turkey and repression in the Rif trigger arrivals
In the face of more complex analyses, the political opposition to Pedro Sánchez's government is calling for an end to the situation, after the government decided to welcome the more than 600 migrants collected on the Aquarius boat and who arrived in August at the port of València. However, the increase in arrivals had already been going on for three months.
Frontex and the experts who seriously analyze the problem talk about the closure of the Italian and Maltese ports, the agreements to deport to Turkey those who arrive in Greece and the flight of Moroccans due to the repression caused by the protests in the Rif as the main causes. However, Africa generates less than 12% of immigration to Spain, according to INE. The majority of people who emigrated to Spain in 2017 (there are no closed figures for 2018) came from Venezuela (51,050).
The first massive influx of this unprecedented migratory crisis occurred on June 16 when 500 people needed to be rescued in Estrecho and transferred to Tarifa, where the consistory had to enable a municipal pabellón to attend to them. The situation provoked an outpouring of solidarity among a large part of the population, who organized themselves through social networks to provide clothes, food and care for the new arrivals.
From then on, the arrivals followed one another and scenes of migrants arriving in improvised places such as port facilities and even the roofs of the same Maritime Rescue boats that had picked them up were reproduced. It was a desperate situation in which several municipalities, such as Algeciras, Los Barrios and San Roque, had to deploy a series of means and resources, for which they never received compensation from the central government, to deal with the emergency.
Pedro Sánchez's government reacted by opening a Temporary Assistance Centre for Foreigners (CATE) in the Crinavis village of San Roque, with capacity for more than 400 people, to centralize and streamline bureaucratic procedures and help for new arrivals, and thus relieve, at least in part, the burden that fell on the area's consistories and the lack of coordination that existed until then.
The year left some dreadful situations, such as the flood of corpses that reached the beaches of Caños de Meca, in Cádiz, when a pier with rotten wood sank with 40 people on board, 24 of whom drowned.
The provinces of Cádiz and Almería are the ones that have received the highest number of migrant arrivals. 20,572 immigrants entered Cádiz, compared to 6,550 in 2017, of which 15,931 came through the Campo de Gibraltar. Through Almería 11,569 set foot on land, compared to 5,713 in 2017.
The exceptional situation of the year that has just ended has exceeded all predictions and organizations related to the arrival of migrants have reacted differently. While the Red Cross has significantly increased the number of staff taking part in emergency response teams, as well as the resources it manages, the professional associations of civil guards and national police have not stopped complaining about the lack of resources and the lack of coordination between administrations. The Unified Police Union is calling for appropriate legislation, better treatment for unaccompanied minors, the creation of more foreign brigades and the optimization of resources.
lavanguardia
English
Portuguese 
Italian 
Spanish