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Spain/North Africa: The tragedy of the dinghies:

01 January 2003

The end of 2002 and the start of 2003 were marked by the tragedy of the dinghies and the stream of dead migrants that they leave on the Spanish and African coasts. On Sunday 2 December the newspapers spoke of two shipwrecks. One involved a vessel off the Libyan coast heading to Italy in which 12 undocumented African immigrants and 56 others disappeared; 52 people were rescued. On the West Saharan coast of Daura, the Moroccan authorities found the corpses of 32 undocumented immigrants from sub-Saharan countries; in this case the dinghies were destined for the Canary Islands. On 2 January a dinghy sank in Tarifa and seven bodies were collected. On 14 January, 24 persons were shipwrecked near Fuerteventura, of whom only 12 were able to save themselves. The corpses of the twelve remaining persons were being found in the following days. On 19 January the Moroccan gendarmes found 16 corpses of persons who were washed back up on the shore in Tangiers after setting off for Spain. A Russian merchant ship collected a boat carrying twelve immigrants, six of whom were dead, in the Ionian Sea. The Guardia Civil found another body in Motril, in the province of Granada.