July 6 (UPI) -- At least 951 migrants have died trying to reach Spain this year so far, according to a report from the Spanish rights group Ca-minando Fronteras Thursday.
The report found 19 boats carrying migrants went missing along with all the people on board, according to data compiled by comparing official sources to eyewitness accounts and information gathered by advocates.
An average of five people per day died attempting to reach Spain by sea in the first half of the year with 49 children and 112 women among the dead.
The report found the victims came from at least 14 nations including Morocco, Algeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Comoros, Sudan and Syria.
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Ca-minando Fronteras identified four specific routes that migrants traveled in their efforts to reach Spain. At least 778 deaths occurred on the Canary Islands route, while 108 people died on the Algerian route, 50 died on the Strait of Gibraltar route, and 21 died on the Alboran route.
According to the report, the failure to devote adequate resources to search and rescue operations, as well as "geopolitical interests linked to migratory control rather than the defense of the right to life," that govern coordination between Spanish and Moroccan authorities have contributed to the tragedies.
Ca-minando Fronteras also identified human rights violations against migrants who survived the journey to Spain.
"Surviving victims have suffered imprisonment, forced displacement, physical attacks and detention under the law on foreigners. The missing victims have been denied the right to be searched for," the report notes. "Victims whose bodies were found suffered from burial in mass graves, lack of identification protocols with guarantees, and absence of dignified burials respecting the beliefs they practiced in life."
The organization says they published the data so that the victims would not be forgotten and in the hopes that more humane policies would be implemented.
"These figures are part of a process of reconstruction of memory: we count them so as not to forget them, we publish them for their families and communities, as a tool to continue fighting for borders to stop being spaces of no rights," said Ca-minando Fronteras coordinator Helena Maleno Garzon.
