Aware Migrants

Even if it is still the busiest route, more migrants wanting to reach Europe are trying to avoid the Central Mediterranean route via Libya. New routes have opened in Egypt, Tunisia, Eastern and Western Algeria, but the one that is attracting more and more people is the one that leaves from Northern Morocco to Spain. In fact, the number of arrivals via this route have more than doubled since the beginning of the year.

With the arrivals, death also returns on this route, which is a very dangerous zone with strong currents.

Early last week, an inflatable dinghy with 52 migrants on board was overturned by a wave. Only three people were found and the rest were swallowed up by the sea. "The worst tragedy of the last decade in the Spanish Mediterranean" said the UNHCR.

Between January and the end of June, more than 6,400 people were rescued at sea between Morocco, Algeria and Spain, according to the International Organization for Migration, which was almost as many people rescued in all of 2016 (8,100). (1)

If traffic continues to increase along this route, the number of victims, which is already very high, is likely to rise.

(1) Source: www.liberation.fr