One in four ships is typically exposed to waves between 1.5 and 3 meters Photo: Getty Images. Ships are typically exposed to waves between 1.5 and 3 meters Photo: Getty Images.
An engine failure or lack of fuel could turn the journey into tragedy for dozens of migrants boarding a speedboat off the African coast. They dream of reaching the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean west of the coast of Morocco.
“It is not common, but some arrive in the Caribbean. As far as we know, four have arrived in the Caribbean in the last five years,” says Helena Maleno, spokeswoman for the Caminando Fronteras collective, which has been monitoring migration routes in the Caribbean region for more than 20 years.
“From 2018 to 2022, 244 ships disappeared completely. The majority was lost on the Atlantic route,” he says, noting the danger posed by venturing into the sea to evade coastal patrols.
The island of El Hierro, the westernmost of the Canary Islands, is the last dry land a canoe can reach.
Beyond this island, 4,500 km of water await the migrants until they see land again. Nobody survives such a journey.
This was the case of a boat that arrived in Tobago in 2021 with fifteen corpses reduced to skeletons on board.
According to investigators, the boat was registered in Mauritania in northwest Africa, around 4,800 kilometers away, from where it set off six months ago.
A boat at the mercy of the currents could take six, seven or eight months to reach the Caribbean, depending on where it loses its engine.
“The journey to the Canary Islands is very long and many of the boats, especially those leaving Senegal and Gambia, belong to fishermen who know the sea but not the high seas. They know the sea by following the coast, like the Phoenicians.” [povo mediterrâneo da Antiguidade conhecido por seu domínio da navegação]”, explains Maleno.
Migrants face many problems while traveling along the coastal zone as it is an area where there is a lot of control. for example the coast and civil guard and Frontex (European Border and Coast Guard Agency), the expert quotes.
That's why many decide to go a little deeper into the Atlantic, and if they go out to sea, they face great danger.
“Many of the ships disappear because they have entered 'no man's land',” says Maleno.
“Another question is whether the wooden ship is stable enough to reach the Caribbean. The most stable are those that arrive, but many disappear because they are swallowed by the Atlantic,” says the spokeswoman for the Caminando Fronteras collective.
“In addition, it must be taken into account that there is an area where there are no ships if the ship deviates from the course,” adds Maleno about the Canary Islands route, which covers a huge area stretching from Guelmim in Morocco to Guelmim extends into Morocco. to Ziguinchor in southern Senegal.
2 of 4 It is possible to drift in the Atlantic for months before reaching the Caribbean. — Photo: Getty Images. It is possible to drift in the Atlantic for months before reaching the Caribbean. — Photo: Getty Images.
Boat problems are more common than you think, Silvia Cruz Orán from the Red Cross Missing Migrants Project tells BBC News Mundo (BBC service in Spanish).
In fact, it's not just refugee boats that are lost at sea, says Orán.
“Recently a colleague from sea rescue told us how people get lost when they fish from Tenerife to La Gomera [duas das ilhas das Canárias] and whose boats also reached the Caribbean,” he notes.
“In other words, it is common because the Atlantic has very strong currents and, depending on weather conditions, it is quite common for them to end up in such remote areas as Trinidad and Tobago or parts of the Caribbean,” he adds.
What is the Canary Current?
The Canary Current is a coastal current with very cold water in the Atlantic Ocean. It lies between the northwest coast of Africa and the North Atlantic Current.
It crosses the Canary Islands, follows the African coast and separates and opens when it reaches Cape Verde.
From there the current goes towards the Caribbean. And from the Caribbean the Gulf Stream rises and reaches Europe again and almost returns to the Canary Islands.
3 of 4 Current is part of the North Atlantic system. — Photo: Source: Government of the Canary Islands The current is part of the North Atlantic system. — Photo: Source: Government of the Canary Islands
“The cold waters of Northern Europe come together in the Canary Islands, that is the cooled Gulf Stream; the waters of the Mediterranean, which can also cool down due to the Alps; and all this comes together to form the Canary Current. which leads back to the islands of the same name,” explains marine engineer Jesús Alarcón Prieto, representative of the School of Marine Engineers at the Polytechnic University of Madrid in Spain.
In the Canary Current, the prevailing winds have a similar direction to the waters, so they also blow westward, says Alonso Hernández Guerra, professor of physical oceanography.
“So if a ship comes from where it is and is left without an engine, both the current and the wind will move it towards America. That’s why you often find boats in the Caribbean,” observes the professor at the Institute of Oceanography and Global Change at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on the Canary Islands.
“This is the same current and wind that Christopher Columbus used to reach America,” the professor adds.
4 out of 4 trade winds reach from sea level to 1,500 or 2,000 meters altitude. — Photo: Getty Images. The trade winds reach from sea level to 1,500 or 2,000 meters altitude. — Photo: Getty Images.
This current and the trade winds, which regularly blow from east to west, remain more or less stable throughout the year except in September and October, when the weather in the Canary Islands is calm and practically windless.
Added to the calm is the special effect of the Canary Islands countercurrent, which helps boats passing near the African coast to reach the islands.
The Canary Islands flows south between Lanzarote and La Palma, but flows north between the islands and the African continent.
This countercurrent only occurs in September and October, meaning these are the months when most migrants arrive on the islands.
From January 1 to October 15, 2023, 23,537 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands by sea, an increase of 79.4% compared to the same period in 2022.
The political and social crisis that Senegal is currently experiencing has led hundreds of Senegalese to take risks at sea. In October last year alone, more than 9,000 migrants arrived on the islands.
According to Caminando Fronteras, in 2022, 1,784 people disappeared or died while trying to reach the Canary Islands.
“In September and October the winds decrease significantly, which means these are calm times. “In addition, the Canary Islands current has the peculiarity of moving north along the African coast in the south in September and October,” comments Hernández War.
“That’s why boats from the Sahara and Mauritania use this current to get north, i.e. to the Canary Islands.”
For those leaving Senegal, it is normal to reach the westernmost islands such as El Hierro or Tenerife. However, anyone who leaves Morocco or Mauritania usually ends up in Gran Canaria.
“Anyone leaving Senegal has to ‘open up’, which means that if you look at the map, the straight line is not along Africa, but a straight line to El Hierro.” The countercurrent lies near the Sahara. When you go through Mauritania, the Canary Islands current moves west and then you have to swim against the current, which takes the ships off route,” he explains.
Ships and merchant vessels use chains on their routes to travel faster and save fuel.
“I'll call her [as correntes] of sea routes,” says Alarcón Prieto, who worked for 25 years as an agent and sales representative for the shipping company Lloyds in the Canary Islands and in the Spanish territories in North Africa.
“The migrants have discovered that if they come from northern Senegal in a straight line, they go straight up to El Hierro. The problem is when you break down. “We are already approaching the zone where it would be calm and there would be little maritime traffic,” comments the expert.
Conventional maritime traffic of merchant ships runs quite close to Africa. Both what goes to South Africa and what goes to Brazil and South America, he notes.
“If boats with migrants are caught by the opening of the Canary Current to the west, they will be in an area with little traffic,” he explains, pointing out the risk of a breakdown in this region.
“In browsers you can see how routes go [de navegação] Follow the currents.
“The Canary Current is 1,000 km from the coast. If [os migrantes] If you go even further, you'll end up in a “noman zone” where you can stay completely without moving up or down. It's the Sargasso Sea. “It is a very difficult area because there is no traffic like on the coast of Africa,” he explains.
“Sometimes we find boats with up to 150 people on board. There, in the middle of the Atlantic, away from the normal routes, she happens to find a ship.”
In such a situation, the ship is usually instructed to stay close to the ship and wait for rescuers to arrive in order to avoid dangerous situations.
However, Prieto admits that this is rare: “We don’t find many of them. One per year or one every four or at most five months.”
In addition to the risk of landing in the calm zone, experts say you also have to expect some cloud vortices that form around the islands, socalled Karman vortices, which can reach a diameter of up to 100 to 200 km.
“These eddies can take you where you least imagine, or suddenly throw you on the coast or take you to the middle of the Atlantic, because many of these eddies reach perfectly into the middle of the Atlantic.”