In a time when illegal migration to Europe is at its highest level in five years, Spain’s Coast Guard said on Monday that three men survived an 11-day voyage on an oil tanker traveling from Nigeria to Spain’s Canary Islands.
According to ship-tracking website Marine Traffic, the stowaways were traveling on the Maltese-flagged Alithini II, which departed Lagos on November 17. They were perched on a tiny strip of metal and left out in the weather. On Monday night, the tanker docked in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa. Nearly three hundred kilometers separate the ports.
The three guys are seen sitting on the protruding splinter of the ship’s rudder in a photo posted on Twitter by the Spanish Coast Guard their backs against the hull of the ship, out of the water. The guys were rescued by a Coast Guard lifeboat and sent to the port of Las Palmas, where they received medical attention, the Coast Guard tweeted.The survivors, according to the Canary Islands representative of the Spanish government, were from Nigeria. As of Tuesday, one of them was still in the hospital.
The Canary Islands government’s migration counselor, Txema Santana, stated on Twitter that “the odyssey of survival goes well beyond fiction.” It has happened before and won’t happen again. Not many stowaways are as fortunate.
The rescue occurs at a time when the European Union is experiencing problems over its immigration policies and as southern European nations, particularly France and Italy, argue over who ought to handle the increasing number of refugees that arrive by sea.
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The International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 165,000 irregular migrants, many of whom are seeking asylum, have entered Europe this year, which is a record high since 187,499 were recorded in 2017.
The three stowaways’ voyage stands out among current migratory trends to Europe. According to Charlotte Slente, general secretary of the Danish Refugee Council, a relief agency with operations in numerous nations, the region has seen an increase in arrivals over the past month. The majority of asylum seekers, however, have recently traveled west via Europe and the Balkans to arrive by land.
According to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, nearly 30,000 migrants arrived in Spain in 2022, a decrease compared to recent years. More than 14,000 of these have landed on the coasts of the Canary Islands, often on overcrowded, rickety boats, many of them on inflatable boats and unsuitable for sea voyages. The crossing is dangerous – according to UNHCR, 1,153 people died or went missing on the route to the Canary Islands last year.
“In general, we have seen migrants and refugees continue to resort to dangerous sea and land travel, reflecting the desperation and vulnerability they may face and the lack of sufficient, alternative and safer routes,” UNHCR spokeswoman said Shabia Mantoo in an email Tuesday. “This includes, among other things, stowage in ships or airless containers and sailing in leaking boats.”
It is rare, though not unprecedented, for asylum seekers to go blind on merchant ships. The Spanish Coast Guard has responded to six similar cases over the past two years, Sofía Hernández, head of the rescue services coordination center in Las Palmas, told the AP. “It’s very dangerous,” she said of the journey aboard the ship’s rudder. A 14-year-old made the journey from Nigeria on an oar accompanied by elderly migrants in 2020, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.
The coronavirus pandemic and resulting border closures have prompted asylum seekers and migrants to take more dangerous routes from Africa to Europe, many with the help of smugglers, according to UNHCR.
“In recent years, many efforts have been made to actually control borders, which has made access for people in need of protection and asylum more difficult in a remarkable way,” Slente said, adding that her organization is seeing an increasing number of cases at European borders Authorities push asylum seekers back to the countries they came from.
Nearly 2,000 people have lost their lives this year on sea routes in the Mediterranean Sea and northwest Africa trying to reach Europe, Mantoo said.
“What is needed are more state-led and better coordinated search and rescue efforts, predictable disembarkations in safe locations, and expedited access to screening and asylum procedures to identify those who may be in need of international protection and return – safely and with dignity – those who don’t,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in a statement ahead of a meeting of EU interior ministers last week.
Ministers met in Brussels to discuss an action plan for the Central Mediterranean, another important migratory route to Europe. Part of this plan involves implementing the voluntary “declaration of solidarity” agreed in June on migrants arriving by sea in southern member states and their distribution to other countries in Europe.
“We cannot continue to work by tackling one crisis at a time or one ship at a time,” Margaritis Schinas, vice-president of the European Commission responsible for coordinating the bloc’s migration and asylum pact, told reporters, according to the German DW News.
