The issue of migratory waves from Senegal to Spain through the Atlantic Ocean has resurfaced in June 2023 with a record frequency of migrant arrivals on the islands of El Hierro, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, La Restinga etc. As of October 24, no less than 27,000 Africans have landed on Spanish shores, the majority of them being Senegalese, according to Western media, including RFI.

However, this phenomenon did neither start today, nor on the coasts of sub-Saharan Africa. Together with José Naranjo, West Africa correspondent for the renowned Spanish media El Pais, who has been working on the subject since 1998, Dialogue Migration has traced the history of the movements of Africans to Spain by sea.

1994, the arrival of the first canoe

According to José Naranjo, who was born and raised in the Canary Islands, the first small boat of migrants from Africa arrived in Spain in 1994. “Between 1994 and 2000, there were small boats that arrived but they all started from Layoun and Tal Faya. So they were Moroccans and Saharawis. From January 2000, sub-Saharan Africans began to come. There were Cameroonians, Malians, Nigerians, Sierra Leoneans. Between 2000 and 2005, all these migrants left Morocco. There were no canoes coming out of Senegal. Before 2005, all Senegalese migrants passed through Morocco on their way to Spanish shores.

José Luis Zapatero becomes Spanish Premier and the tragedy in Ceuta and Mellila 

José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, candidate of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), won the general elections on 14th March 2004. “A massive new regulation of undocumented immigrants” was among the first eight (8) measures he implemented in the first two years of his mandate. But at the same time, his first trip abroad as Prime Minister was to Morocco on 24 April 2004 to ask King Mohamed VI to curb the waves of migration at sea that flowed from the Moroccan coast to the Canary Islands.

Spain’s relations with Morocco play a major role in controlling the European Union’s southern border. Due to its geographical proximity i.e.14 kilometers separating the two shores, Morocco is the starting point for most attempts to enter Spain illegally from the south and serves as an operational base for the networks that control the trafficking of illegal immigration. Thus, the abysmal economic gap between Europe and Africa transforms the Sherifian kingdom into a transit zone for sub-Saharan migration to Europe.

Between 2002 and 2004, there were many dugout canoes that landed in the Canary Islands from Morocco. Among these waves, there were many deaths in the ocean. A tragedy that the Spanish Prime Minister at the time wanted to stem by frank cooperation with Morocco. After his trip, the Moroccan government sent several soldiers to reinforce surveillance on its coasts. A guard post was set up every 200 meters along the beach. It was therefore impossible for migrants to pass across without being apprehended.

It was from this moment that the pressure mounted in Ceuta and Melilla where the Spanish government went to raise the size of the barriers by even adding barbed wire.

Departure points towards southern Morocco and the arrival of the first Senegalese pirogues

Faced with persecution by the Moroccan Royal Army on the one hand and sharp barbed wire on the Spanish border on the other, would-be migrants then headed south to Dakhla in Western Sahara. Thus, in 2005, the canoes began to leave Nouhadibou (western Mauritania) to reach Spain. The Senegalese fishermen then said to themselves, “If canoes can leave Nouhadibou to go to Spain, why not leave our coasts?”

José Naranjo recounts: “I remember well, between the end of 2005 and March 2006, there were already several canoes that had entered Spain. It’s as if a new door has opened. These canoes set off from Casamance, Kayar, Mbour, Joal, Saint-Louis, Dakar and all over the place. In 2006, there were 32 thousand migrants who entered Spain.”

Again, we had to react because there were several candidates who had remained in the ocean during this period. A real drama. In collaboration with the Senegalese authorities, the Spanish Guardia Civil deployed its teams to the coast of Senegal in 2006 to curb the phenomenon. “They came here with planes, patrol boats, etc. But has this really slowed down departures? No! “, says our colleague from the media El Pais.

He continues: “What really reduced departures during this period, in my opinion, was the repatriations. There were at least 20,000 in 2006, Senegalese, Malians, Mauritanians, etc. At the time, I interviewed candidates in Thiaroye who had been repatriated three times. They no longer had the courage and strength to go back. You spend your money many times, you risk your life several times to be repatriated. That’s how the waves went down.”

Libya’s collapse, the scramble for the desert inferno

Between 2007 and 2011, the number of canoes travelling from Senegal to Spain decreased. But when Libya turned upside down after Gaddafi’s death, migration routes changed. The candidates have found a new door through the desert to reach Europe. But it took three long years to realise the hell these migrants were plunged into as they passed through Libya. In 2014, when there were reports on slavery, human trafficking, violence and violations of migrants’ rights, etc. The world discovered the horror. Between 2015 and 2016, the number of would-be migrants decreased.

Covid-19 and the resurgence of arrivals in Spain

While the policy of repatriation of migrants from Spain to Senegal, Mali, Guinea etc. was going well and seemed to be working well, a global event came to change the situation in 2020. The world is facing the Covid-19 pandemic, which is leading to a near-global lockdown and restriction of movement between countries. As a result, it was no longer possible to organise repatriation flights to return migrants to their countries of origin.

The first waves of migrants who arrived on the Canary Islands in 2020 found almost no one there, except the locals. Indeed, the economy of these Spanish islands is driven by the strong tourist activity. More than 12.3 million tourists visit the Canary Islands every year. And since with Covid-19, there were no tourists there, the Spanish government reached an agreement with the hotel establishments to house the migrants. With the help of new technologies and social networks, the new tenants of these palaces have started to share videos and photos of their “good life” and their new luxurious lifestyle with their relatives and acquaintances back home.

This was followed by a new rush of would-be migrants to Spain and even other Western countries because of fake news such as “the European population was almost decimated by the new virus” or that the old continent needed manpower.

Between 2021 and 2023, the frequency of arrivals became more aggressive. From June to October this year, nearly 30,000 migrants arrived in Spain by sea. While most of them were Senegalese, the country’s political situation is no stranger to this. Between March 2021 and June 2023, several dozen people were killed in protests in support of main opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who was convicted, imprisoned and in the process of being deprived of his right to run in the 2024 presidential election. The question is, will the 2006 arrival record be broken?