The Cost of Passage: Violence and Death on the Atlantic Route to Spain

CANARY ISLANDS, Spain—On a warm November afternoon, just after 4 p.m., a brightly painted wooden boat — known locally as a cayuco — entered the harbor of La Restinga, a small fishing town on the Canary Island of El Hierro. Onboard were more than 200 men, women and children from sub-Saharan Africa. They had left days earlier from an unknown location on the West African coast. Behind them: the Atlantic Ocean. Ahead of them: a new life in Europe. They had made it.

On the dock waited officers from Spain’s national police and Guardia Civil, the Spanish military police, along with doctors, nurses and interpreters. They followed a strict protocol. The migrants disembarked. The weak were placed in wheelchairs. Every person was photographed. Medical staff examined them in shipping containers set up as makeshift clinics. Ambulances stood by. Sometimes, helicopters were needed. Sometimes, hearses.

The Nov. 3 boat was logged as case number 13877055. The vessel was given the code 223U. Onboard were 207 people: 178 men, 10 women and 19 boys. The suspected departure point: Banjul, Gambia. The migrants came from Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Gambia.

Usually, arrivals follow a routine: After the initial screening, migrants are taken by bus to a processing center in the village of San Andrés, then transferred to Tenerife and eventually the Spanish mainland, where they wait until their asylum claims have been processed. But something was different that day. Police officers and medics sensed something was off — something terrible had happened.

There were the vacant stares. The blank expressions. And then, one man with a deep wound in his chest. “Stab wound to the thorax,” the medics wrote in their report.

For the past 20 months, this tiny island of just 12,000 residents has become a hotspot in Europe’s ongoing migration crisis. Twenty-four thousand migrants arrived on El Hierro in 2024 alone, according to the Spanish government — more than half of all those who reached the Canary Islands and 10 percent of all the arrivals in the European Union. “We’re becoming the new Lampedusa,” warned island president Alpidio Armas over a year ago, referring to the small Italian island that has time and again been the main hotspot of the European migration crisis since 2015.

The situation has only grown more severe over the past year. While unauthorized migration to the EU as a whole has declined, crossings via the Atlantic route have spiked. For people from West Africa, it is the shortest route to Europe, as they don’t need to travel thousands of miles — including through the desert — to reach the North African coast. Boats depart from Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal and Gambia.

2024 was — according to Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency — a record year for the Canary Islands route: Never before had so many people taken this path to Europe. More and more boats are setting off, and an increasing number of captains are risking the highly dangerous journey.

Engine failures or navigation problems occur frequently, causing boats to go off course and drift helplessly at sea. Some vessels have even ended up as far away as the Americas. Nineteen bodies were found drifting in a boat off the coast of St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean in January.

But the boats are dangerous for more reasons than just a perilous sea crossing. What happened onboard Cayuco 223U would come to light six weeks later: According to the Guardia Civil, four migrants were allegedly murdered by fellow passengers and thrown overboard. In late December, seven suspects were arrested — by then, they had already been transferred from El Hierro to the largest migrant camp in the Canaries: Las Raíces, located on Tenerife. The accused are believed to be patrones — the boat’s leaders, captains and enforcers. Prosecutors didn’t respond to questions about the state of the case.

The Spanish news agency EFE reported this is the first time such individuals are being criminally prosecuted for killings aboard a migrant vessel in route to Spain. But this doesn’t appear to be the first time murders have occurred.

The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO, spent months investigating violence on migrant vessels at sea — speaking with survivors, police, medics, migration experts and judicial officials across Africa and Europe. The full scale of the violence is impossible to quantify, and in some cases we could not verify the accusations. But investigations are increasing. The legal complexities of crimes that occur in international waters make it hard for Spain to hold anyone accountable. In many cases where no official inquiry is opened, concerned police officers gather information themselves and pass it on to journalists.

Usually, no one asks what happened during the crossing. But this time was different.

“It was clear from the moment the boat docked in La Restinga that something violent had occurred,” a spokesperson for the Guardia Civil told us. The migrants were exhausted, starving. “We had to proceed very carefully.”

The man with the stab wound in his chest was taken to the hospital in Valverde, the island’s main town. Investigators say he told doctors he had fallen onto a sharp piece of metal. Violence? No, no — everything was fine, he insisted. The doctors patched him up. He was released. Over time, officers spoke to passengers one by one but many were too scared to speak.

Three weeks later, two Senegalese men appeared at a police station in Tenerife. They were searching for friends who had boarded the Nov. 3 cayuco and never made contact again. By then, rumors were already swirling. One former resident of Las Raíces, a Senegalese man who was granted anonymity to speak because he is afraid of being targeted, told us that a group of young men had boasted openly of their acts of violence during the crossing — “without shame, almost with pride.”

“Out there, it’s survival of the fittest,” the Senegalese man explained. “People insult each other, fight each other. Once we arrive, we put on our real, our peaceful face — because the danger has passed.”

This is what happened, according to the police report: The boat had left Gambia on Oct. 27 and picked up more passengers on Bassoul Island in Senegal. Witnesses say that after three days at sea, the captains began to panic because they lost their bearings. Believing the boat was cursed, they accused a young man of being a “vampire” after he muttered in his sleep. They tied him up and beat him, even with a machete.

Two companions, a brother and a friend, tried to convince the skippers that the young man was simply exhausted and confused from the ordeal. Shortly afterward, witnesses say, they too were bound and tortured. Then another man was declared a “vampire.” Witnesses say one of the four was strangled, while the other three were bound and then thrown alive into the sea.

The arrest of the captains created quite a stir in Las Raíces. Built in a former military barracks, it can hold up to 10,000 people. Residents live in shipping containers and tents. Local resident Luis Prieto, head of a neighborhood association, says migrants now outnumber locals in surrounding villages. What was once an idyllic retirement area of farmland, woods and sea views has become increasingly chaotic.

Prieto points to spots where he says drugs are sold and where young men are picked up — he suspects for prostitution. He shows videos of fights and fires and tells of residents finding strangers from the camp inside their homes. “And now,” he says, “they’ve arrested alleged murderers — right here in our neighborhood. We don’t know who we’re living next to. This can’t go on.” He admits he’s afraid.

There is evidence that violence on these ships is a common problem. Spanish sea rescue workers frequently report injuries that could not have been self-inflicted. Female survivors often point to their lower abdomen after disembarkation — a silent signal they could have been raped and urgently need help.

Then there was the cayuco that arrived on Aug. 23 after eight days at sea. A reporter from the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network was in the harbor when it docked. Onboard were more than 174 people — men, women, children and babies — from Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Pakistan and Bangladesh. After everyone had disembarked and the boat was inspected, rescue workers discovered two corpses below deck — young men, bound hand and foot.

The bodies were removed, and hearses arrived to take them away. Three days later, the men were buried anonymously in El Pinar. There was no official statement, and the Guardia Civil did not respond to questions about whether there would be an official inquiry.

In early March, we spoke with one of the Canary Islands’ most senior judicial officials, who was granted anonymity to reveal information about an ongoing investigation.

“Let’s be clear,” he said. “Violence doesn’t happen on every boat. We mustn’t stigmatize migrants.” But the conditions are extreme. Long journeys. Engine failures. Hunger. Thirst. Despair. People are packed tightly. They urinate overboard. Women take drugs before departure to avoid needing the toilet. Panic spreads quickly.

Sometimes, he said, violence is used “out of desperation.” “If someone goes mad, they may be tied up — to protect them and everyone else.” In some cases, passengers begin accusing each other of witchcraft. “It happens,” he said. “And sometimes, the accused is thrown overboard.”

He has also seen rape cases — women brutalized in the middle of crowded boats. “That’s senseless violence. And yes, it happens.”

Victims do come forward, he said. Witnesses give testimony. Suspects are identified. “But that’s where it gets complicated.”

Spanish law only permits prosecution if there’s a direct link to Spain — through the act, the victim or the suspect. That means: If a Senegalese man kills a Congolese man in international waters, for example, Spanish courts are powerless. There is one exception: If the accused is one of the boat’s leaders. “Unless the suspect is a patron, we can’t touch them. Only then can we add the charge of facilitating illegal entry — combining it with a violence charge.”

Often outnumbered on the boats, women are very vulnerable. Many women already endure sexual violence, forced marriage and extreme poverty before setting off. Ibrahima Kane, a Senegalese lawyer and founder of the human rights organization Raddho, says women often board boats out of desperation. Some women have not seen their husbands, now living in Europe, for years. Their journey is an attempt at family reunification.

“Three women among 15 men — that kind of power imbalance makes abuse almost inevitable.”

Human rights workers in Senegal confirm women face violence on these boats.

One volunteer at an aid organization on the Canary Islands described meeting a woman who said she was raped by all the men onboard. The boats are overcrowded, offering no privacy or protection. “We know what they’ve been through,” says the volunteer, who was granted anonymity because she didn’t have her organization’s permission to speak publicly, “but they rarely talk about it. Abuse is part of women’s migration stories. It remains invisible — even if their bodies tell the story, through scars and lifelong trauma.”

One doctor, granted anonymity as she didn’t have permission to speak publicly, recounted the case of a young woman who arrived physically shattered, anxious, very afraid. She told the doctor that men had thrown her baby overboard — so that they could drink her breast milk during the rest of the journey.

On Jan. 1, a woman from Guinea arrived in La Restinga and reported being attacked during the voyage for being Christian. Her testimony potentially added another layer to the violence — religiously motivated abuse. She said she filed a report with the police in Valverde (a volunteer at an aid organization translating for her confirmed this to us), but no action was taken. The Guardia Civil did not respond to questions about the case.

In mid-February, the Guardia Civil made another arrest: Seven alleged smugglers from a cayuco that arrived on Dec. 28 with 224 people onboard. The boat had launched from Djiffer, Senegal, on Dec. 20. Conditions onboard were appalling. According to the Guardia Civil by the time it reached El Hierro, eight people were dead.

Among the dead: a 14-month-old baby from Gambia, traveling with his mother and uncle. Also dead: a father and his 18-year-old son from Guinea. According to police, witnesses say they were murdered by the smugglers. Five of the eight dead have been identified.

But none of the suspects remained on El Hierro. They had already been moved — to Tenerife, and then to mainland Spain. Arrests followed in Madrid, León and Almería, according to the Guardia Civil. All are now in pre-trial detention. The accused were identified as boat leaders. The Guardia Civil spokesperson told us: “We’re confident we have enough for prosecution.”

But will it hold up?

The senior judicial official sighs. “Lawyers know the limits of our system,” he says. “It’s hard to prove both the crime and that the person was a boat captain. Harder still when the victims are lost at sea.”

He mentions one particularly disturbing recent case: A boat near Fuerteventura, another Canary Island, was taking on water. Moroccan passengers allegedly attacked Senegalese ones, throwing them overboard to lighten the load. One Moroccan man was accused of pushing a five-year-old boy into the sea. But he wasn’t a patron — so nothing could be done. He was released.

“He’s free,” the official says grimly. “Imagine if he kills another child.”

The case was never made public. Authorities hope that Morocco will prosecute the man, as they have informed their Moroccan counterparts of their findings. In mid-May Spanish authorities still didn’t know if the Moroccans did. (The Moroccan Ministry of the Interior didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Moroccan embassy in Germany wrote, “We do not currently have any information on this matter.”)

As for the Nov. 3 boat, prosecutors remain optimistic about pressing charges. But there’s no DNA. No blood. The boat was destroyed before witnesses spoke. And the dead? The ocean swallowed them.