In the last decade, more than 30,000 people have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe. Behind each number, there is a life, a story, and an identity. This report addresses Spanish migration policy and its coordination with the European Union. A system that often forgets the essential: it is not about figures but about human beings who risk their lives to seek another.
Names are important. They are the first thing we say when we introduce ourselves. When someone talks about us, they use it to define us, to give us meaning. The name anchors us to the world, gives us presence, and brings us closer to others. Without a name to identify us, we are only an impersonal concept. With form, but without identity.
Amal, Gamal, and Fatou are just random names, common in Morocco, Western Sahara, and Senegal. But there are many more names to talk about.
More than thirty thousand names that, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014. Each of those numbers leaves behind a life, a family, a community. An identity. When they are spoken of, they are not given meaning; they are just another number. They have no presence and do not seem anchored to this world. We do not get close to them. It is not possible to empathize with a number.
On the other side of the coin, those who make it. According to data from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, 55,618 people arrived in Spain by sea in 2023 alone. People who left their homes and risked their lives fleeing wars, persecutions, and lack of opportunities. They also have names.
Spain, due to its proximity to North Africa, has been for years a major destination for thousands of people seeking to reach Europe. The Spanish southern border, which includes the Strait of Gibraltar as well as Ceuta, Melilla, and the Canary Islands, has one of the largest migration flows in the Mediterranean region.
According to official data, around three hundred and twenty thousand people have entered the country irregularly since 2015.
Problems and Limitations of Spanish Migration Policy
The Spanish Immigration Law, together with international cooperation and European Union policy, is responsible for managing a big share of the total immigration that enters the continent. This law regulates the conditions of entry and stay of those who access the country. For some, insufficient; for others, abusive and unfair. The only certain thing is that a handful of legal paragraphs condition the lives—and deaths—of hundreds of thousands of people.
The Spanish immigration system is not without problems. One of the most controversial practices carried out in immigration are the so-called hot returns. Amnesty International defines them as:
“The expulsion of migrant or refugee persons without them having access to due procedures and without them being able to challenge that act through an effective judicial remedy. In other words, they occur when the State Security Forces and Bodies expel migrant or refugee persons without due protection or guarantees. These people do not have the opportunity to explain their circumstances, request asylum, or appeal the expulsion.”
According to the Statista Research Department, between 2017 and 2022, there were about six thousand. Six thousand names and surnames to whom, after fleeing their countries and leaving everything behind, any type of help or opportunity was denied. They are names that, although not drowned, will not be said in a European reality that for many is a dream.
The worst case occurred in June 2022. Six meters high. Two parallel fences. Barbed spikes to prevent the jump, these replaced the razor wire that, until four years ago, cut hands and legs. Guard posts. A helicopter with a thermal camera. Police. Dogs. This was the welcome Melilla gave to the two thousand people who tried to climb the border. Most had crossed Africa from Sudan.
The result was between 37 and 100 dead, depending on the source consulted. About five hundred were hot-returned. Some of them injured, many put on buses and abandoned in Morocco, a country that is not even theirs. Others died along the way. The intervention of
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