On the 1st of October 2024, Alarm Phone received a call from relatives reporting the departure of 14 people from Tipaza. After 11 days adrift at sea, they were found between Menorca and Sardinia. Only three people survived.
On the same day, 14 people left Annaba on a boat for the island of Sardinia. On the 11th of October, the bodies of five people, including a woman and a child, were found in El Kala.
On the 6th of October, we received the sad news that four bodies had been found on the beach of Ain Beinane, including those of two children. Four people from this boat survived, and the rest of the people, we do not know how many, are still missing. They had left Ain Taya (Algiers) on the 4th of October for the Balearic Islands.
On the 7th of October, we received news that two people had survived after their boat, which had left Ain Beinane on the 3rd of October, had capsized. In addition, the bodies of two people who had been on the boat were identified. The others are still missing.
On the same day, we learned of the interception of 25 people who had left Oran between the 4th and 5th of October for the Iberian peninsula. They were adrift in the Tnes region, intercepted and taken to the police station. But they were not all there; one person was missing.
On the 8th of October, we received information about the discovery of a body in Beni Saf (west of the capital Oran) which had already been identified.
On the 11th of October, the bodies of 5 people were found in El-Kala, including those of a woman and a child.
In recent weeks, from east to west of the Algerian coast, the bodies of people who tried to cross the Mediterranean to reach the Spanish coast have washed up on the shores. This is a full-blown massacre, and could be avoided by providing safe passages for all people, instead of the xenophobic, classist and racist imposition of visas, bureaucratic barriers and origin-based controls.
We point out that the responsibility for these deaths rests squarely on the shoulders of Fortress Europe as the direct perpetrator of the deaths at sea.
Families take back control
The rage is communal and takes to the streets: Last week in Annaba, families were demonstrating against this situation. On the 9th of October, the road in front of the Badji Mokhtar Ahmed El Bouni University in Annaba was blocked by the families of the disappeared harragas. We stand in solidarity with the anger and dignity of these families.
And what about the Spanish coast?
Every day the media informs us of the arrival of “floods” of small boats on the Spanish coast. Occasionally, the shipwrecks of the boats whose corpses wash up there are also mentioned. Little is said, however, about the ones who do not arrive.
In their report “Monitoring 2023. Right to Life”, Caminando Fronteras counted 434 deaths on this route last year[1] . Of the boats that left Algeria and were reported to Alarm Phone, 14 are still missing, and Caminando Fronteras documented the disappearance of 22 boats on the route from Algeria to Spain in 2023 . [2]
The identification of bodies washed up on Spanish shores is very difficult. In theory, there are coordination mechanisms between countries so that families can have DNA tests and compare them with those of corpses found in another country. In practice, this coordination is limited. Often a complaint to the Spanish national police is necessary to activate identification and DNA testing protocols in Algeria for relatives. Fear and mistrust of the authorities makes it difficult to begin this process on many occasions.
Many bodies arriving on Spanish shores maintain the status of “unclaimed”. Already in the ICRC’s 2019-2021 report “Counting the dead”, it is noted that:
Spain does not have a consistent system to keep track of municipal-led burials for deceased migrants and at the time of writing, it was not clear where the identified and non-repatriated bodies are buried .[3]
In addition to the inaction of the Spanish authorities, it is difficult for families to find advice from Algeria. Since January of this year, there has been no referral from the Restoring family links Red Crescent programme in Algeria. To activate a tracing request, families would have to go to the nearest Red Cross or Red Crescent office, which would eventually coordinate with its counterpart in the missing person’s place of destination.
Families searching from Algeria and elsewhere sometimes face the ghosts of false rumours spread through social media or even phone calls that make them doubt whether their relatives may be alive and detained.
Our colleague V. is trying to support a person for the repatriation of the bodies of his daughters. He tells us:
“They are Algerian girls and sisters who died six months ago and were found on a boat off the coast of Cartagena. Their mother is a poor elderly person and the consulate does not intervene even though there is a law that stipulates that the body of each migrant will be repatriated at the expense of the Algerian treasury… The four bodies are buried in Cartagena because the consulate does not want to repatriate them”.
This situation is re-traumatising for the families, whose unfinished mourning for the disappearance is aggravated by the silence, denial, lack of recognition and lack of reparation on the part of the states that are complicit in the border killings.
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[1] https://caminandofronteras.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Maqueta_ES.pdf
[2] op.cit.
[3] ICRC: COUNTING THE DEAD. UPDATE 2020-2022
