Rescues 450 km from the Canary Islands: The Atlantic route's figures

Nearly 18,000 Arrivals in a Year and a Rescue 450 km from the Canary Islands

Deaths on migration routes to Spain are said to have quadrupled in just five years, according to figures released in one of the compiled materials: 224 deaths in 2017 and around 850 in subsequent years. Few dispute that the journey is perilous. The argument begins with the next sentence, which attempts to explain why. This is where the conversation breaks down, with data pointing in different directions and an uncomfortable underlying question: is the problem how many people set sail, or how the aftermath is managed?

Because the volume of arrivals is not the only number on the table. There are nautical miles, public contracts, organizational accounts, and police statistics. All mixed together.

Rescues Carried Out 450 Kilometers from the Canary Islands

The most striking aspect of the material is not the arrivals themselves, but where the operations take place. The released documentation claims that a Maritime Rescue vessel traveled up to 450 kilometers from the Canary Islands to pick up a group located just over 20 nautical miles from Dakhla. Another operation, on August 15, 2020, reportedly occurred more than 360 kilometers from the archipelago and about 70 miles from the same area. A third, on December 14, 2020, took place 60 miles from that same point and 162 kilometers from the Canary Islands.

The interpretation of these journeys is simple and explosive: if the rescue occurs near the departure point, the journey undertaken by passengers is shortened, and the incentive to board an inflatable boat changes. The author of these routes summarizes this in a very serious accusation—facilitating irregular immigration—which has not been validated by any court. The author of this data has stated they faced pressure not to publish it. That part cannot be verified; the coordinates, at least, are on paper.

Why Does the Rescue Distance Matter?

Because it underpins half of the argument. If the operation is launched twenty miles from the coast of departure, the journey undertaken by those boarding is measured in hours, not days. And this, argue those who support this thesis, makes the rescue device another cog in the machinery exploited by human trafficking networks.

Conversely, the objection is equally forceful: not rescuing is tantamount to letting people die at sea, and no serious state builds its migration policy on that foundation. Both things can be true simultaneously. That is precisely the problem, and neither side seems willing to admit it.

Underlying this is a legal question that the material leaves open: how far does the obligation to provide assistance extend in waters near third countries, and who bears the diplomatic cost of not doing so?

Arrival Numbers: 1,000 in a Week and Almost 18,000 in the Year

The trickle turned into a flood. The accumulating figures speak of over 1,000 arrivals in a single week and nearly 18,000 so far this year. By route: more than 200 people to the Canary Islands from coastal areas under Segarro control, with over 100 departures concentrated in the Tan-Tan area; and more than 70 arrivals in Murcia and Almería from Algeria in just 24 hours.

Furthermore, there was a warning of a supposed departure operation organized from Algeria with Almería, Murcia, and the Balearic Islands as planned destinations. The recurring pattern is that closing one route opens another: pressure in one area shifts the flow to the next, without reducing it.

This dynamic is what turns any weekly figure into volatile material. A bad weekend justifies a headline; twelve months of consistent arrivals, almost never.

How Much Public Money Do Organizations Operating at Sea Receive?

Here, the material shifts from the humanitarian to the accounting level. It states that the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR) has received over 400 million euros since 2015, and a comment within the material suggests that ProActiva—the company behind Open Arms—had been contracting lifeguard services for beaches and pools for decades before venturing into rescues in international waters. The conclusion drawn is that an economic ecosystem exists, built around the migratory phenomenon, and that, like any subsidized ecosystem, it has an interest in the funding not drying up.

There is a logical fallacy in this reasoning, and it is worth pointing out: that an activity generates income does not, in itself, prove that it causes the flow it justifies. Criticism of the business is legitimate; an accusation of a crime, however, requires more than a profit and loss account.

The Central Mediterranean and the 'Call Effect' Theory

The other scenario is the Mediterranean. The thesis defended is that the greater the presence of organizations in the area, the more boats set sail, and drownings increased by 30% compared to the previous year. It even points to an assistance operation conducted 36 nautical miles off the Tunisian coast, with the boat dispatched from an Italian port, and suggests that certain fishing vessels are used to simulate shipwrecks when convenient.

This is the hard version of the 'call effect' argument, and it has a known problem: correlation does not imply causation. More shipwrecks could also explain more deployments, not the other way around. No one has yet demonstrated the direction of the vector, although many speak as if it were proven.

What Do the Cited Crime Statistics Say?

The leap from the sea to statistics is made with a figure broadcast on television and included in the material: 81% of men arrested for violent robbery in public places in Catalonia were foreign nationals. Added to this is the account of an incident in Granada, published by La Gaceta, in which a group harassed several girls and assaulted the young man who defended them, with most of those involved having police records according to that account.

These two pieces are used as evidence of a pattern. Methodologically, the data does not support this claim: arrest percentages do not adjust for resident population, age, or recidivism, and a rate without a denominator explains far less than it appears. Turning the profile of a portion of those arrested into a description of an entire group is a leap that the figures do not authorize.

Segarro, Algeria, and the Narrative of the Routes

Informational asymmetry remains. It is argued that departures from Algeria are counted without issue, while those from areas under Segarro control barely appear in the media, and it is sarcastically noted the 'effective control' that Segarro displays when it suits the bilateral relationship. In 2019, it is recalled, there was already material about unaccompanied foreign minors that did not generate the same noise.

The core issue is not Segarro or Algerian: it is that Europe's southern border is managed with an eye on the current partner and the electoral calendar. When the partner changes mood, the map changes.

With the current trends, it is reasonable to expect arrivals to continue concentrating in the Canary Islands while peninsular routes reactivate seasonally. But it should be said quietly: in this matter, every prediction has lasted less than the previous one.