Overview
- Caminando Fronteras says its dataset closed on December 15 counts 3,090 dead, including 192 women and 437 minors across 303 incidents.
- Spain’s Interior Ministry reports irregular arrivals down 40.4% year over year to December 15, with Canary Islands arrivals down 59.9%.
- The Atlantic route to the Canary Islands remains the deadliest with 1,906 deaths, while 1,037 are recorded on Mediterranean routes concentrated between Algeria and the Balearics.
- The NGO attributes many tragedies to slow activation of rescue systems and to the outsourcing of border control to third countries.
- Legal and political pressures persist, with Supreme Court orders for the state to care for over a thousand unaccompanied minors, disputes over funding and relocations, and the detention of nine workers at a Quorum 77–managed center.