Damned lies and statistics

Of the thousands of young Moroccans who entered Ceuta by sea recently, 72 drowned in the attempt.

Just process that statistic for a moment. That's 72 young people who left home in high spirits one day only to be returned in body bags the next; 72 families grieving children lost in a moment of juvenile enthusiasm gone fatally wrong; 72 funerals for mourners to lament a senseless loss of a young life. The repercussions of this will be generational and could become existential for the Moroccan state if, or when, that grief turns to anger.

Meanwhile, those opportunist politicians in Europe and the United States who disseminate mis- and disinformation whenever a situation like this arises make mischief with human tragedy in an attempt to stir up xenophobic hatred. Facts are never allowed to get in the way of their hate-filled messaging, or are dismissed as 'fake news'. Admittedly, independently verified facts can be hard to uncover but they are available if you bother to look for them. Shame on anyone, especially in positions of power and influence, who either can't be bothered or who wilfully chooses to ignore them..

As a result of events in Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish government, and especially the Presidente del Gobierno (Prime Minister), Pedro Sánchez, has come in for a great deal of unfair criticism from right-leaning critics. While undeniably true that Spain - with its autonomous regions either having Europe's only land borders with Africa (Ceuta and Melilla) or being islands in the Atlantic or Mediterranean (the Canaries and Balearics) where seaborne African migrants seek refuge hoping to find a 'back door' into Europe - has its problems, it has nevertheless worked hard to address them. In partnership with EU institutions such as the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) and the EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund (EU-AITF) it endeavours to tackle them 'upstream', at source, in African nations. It also continues to deport those irregular migrants deemed to have no right to remain*. According to InfoMigrants, a verified news and information website set up in 2017 as a collaborative project by three major European broadcasters, France Médias Monde, Deutsche Welle, and Italy's press agency ANSA, such efforts are paying dividents. 

For example, InfoMigrants cites a 62% drop in migrant arrivals in the Canary Islands in 2025 alongside an overall 42.6% decrease in irregular arrivals across Spain (36,775 in 2025 compared to 64,019 in 2024) although another Spanish archipelago, the Balearic Islands, has seen an increase in arrivals. In 2025, nearly 7,400 people arrived in the territory, compared to 5,900 in 2024. This represents a 24.5% increase so the picture is mixed but reflects changing political circumstances in different African regions. The majority of Mediterranean crossings are predominantly from Algeria and, increasingly, Somalia whereas in the Canaries - a refugee situation of which I have some firsthand experience - migrants tend to arrive from Sub-Saharan Africa.

The route from Algeria to the Balearic Islands had thus become "the main transit route to Spain" by 2025, according to a report published at the end of December by the NGO, Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders). This increase in departures to the archipelago caused a higher number of deaths, with 1,037 people who left Algeria for the Balearic Islands losing their lives in 2025 compared to 517 in 2024. Conversely, deaths on the Canary Islands ('West Africa Atlantic') route have fallen. Caminando Fronteras reported 1,906 deaths and disappearances on the Atlantic route compared to 9,757 deaths or disappearances in 2024 in the same maritime area, representing almost all of the deaths at sea towards Spain that year. The cold facts are grim indeed but to ignore the very real political and humanitarian efforts that are being made to improve matters is shameful.

For the political right to peddle fallacies in the face of the facts is unconscionable and needs calling out.

*According to Eurostat Spain returned 9,275 Third Country migrants in the first quarter of 2026

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