Victims of the necrofrontier 2018-2022. For memory and justice

The words we use to describe the world matter. This glossary contains definitions of the theoretical concepts underpinning our actions and analyses, the names of international organisations and explanations of the legal terms relating to border control and their impact on the lives of migrant people and their loved ones.

At Ca-minando Fronteras, we not only count victims, we also recount their stories. We meticulously count the number of boats that are shipwrecked while carrying migrant people and the numbers of people falling victim to borders. We recount the life stories and circumstances that prompt thousands of people to migrate in dangerous, vulnerable conditions and the searches launched by their families when they go missing. In doing so, we analyse what is happening at the western Euro-African border in depth and identify the structural factors that affect migrant people’s right to life.

Our situated, senti-thinking research methodology draws on quantitative and qualitative tools, which are updated and reworked every day as part of our actions to defend life at the borders. The contents of this report are the product of careful monitoring, allowing us to identify the structural causes and systemic effects of migration control policies at the western Euro-African border.

11,522 people lost their lives between 2018 and 2022 (data updated on 1 January 2023) while migrating towards the Spanish State. The loss of their lives and disappearance of most of their bodies is no coincidence. In this report, we focus on the measures applied as part of a structured necropolitics that is sustained over time. As we count the victims, we linger on migrant women (1,272) and children (377) and shine a spotlight on the specific violence and criminalisation that they suffer at the borders, much of which goes unnoticed.

The people who lost their lives over the last five years came from 31 different countries and had taken very different migration routes. Some had travelled up to 10,000 kilometres, while others had just left their homes to catch a boat and were never seen again. We list the different forms of institutional violence, persecution and coercion that they encounter as they migrate and the repressive practices employed against migrants seeking to enter by land, sea and air by transit countries bordering the Spanish State.

The period covered by the report is highly relevant as it saw a shift towards more dangerous migration routes and new border control dynamics that have led to rising numbers of victims. In this section, we present the numbers of victims on each sea (Algerian, Alboran Sea, Strait of Gibraltar and Canary Islands routes) and land route (the borders at Ceuta and Melilla) and explore the different border control policies in place, which are closely related to search and rescue practices aimed at saving lives.

Are there any repetitive patterns that allow us to identify the factors causing deaths at the western Euro-African border?

If so, can we analyse the degree to which these factors recur? Can we identify systematic structures and policies that undermine the right to life?

Does the exercise of power at the border in the form of discrimination based on ethnic origin, class, race, gender and religion establish patterns that determine who will live and who will die when crossing the border?

These are the questions that guide our analysis of the causes and circumstances surrounding the 625 tragedies we monitored on the western Euro-African border.

To the memory of the victims of the necroborder, their families and their friends. For truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition. We will continue to count.