By Joan Faus
Two years in the past forensic pathologist Modesto Martinez, 68, moved to the tiny Canary Island of El Hierro with a watch to retiring. As an alternative, he is been known as out day and night time to take care of lifeless African migrants, as they arrive by sea in rising numbers.
“I believed El Hierro can be quieter, with two or three deaths a 12 months,” mentioned Martinez, who got here from close by Tenerife, as he drove his Humvee automotive on a windy October Sunday to a funeral dwelling to post-mortem one other physique.
Up to now this 12 months, 33 irregular migrants have arrived lifeless or died shortly after reaching El Hierro, in accordance with official knowledge. In 2023, the quantity was 11. In 2022, there was one.
The variety of migrants arriving from the West African coast within the Spanish archipelago is operating at all-time highs. However the fee of migrants going lacking or dying on the voyage is rising 5 occasions sooner, the most recent out there knowledge reveals.
Martinez is the one forensic pathologist on El Hierro, which has a inhabitants of 11,400 and is a rising vacation spot for migrants at a time when general irregular arrivals to Europe have declined.
As some European international locations crack down onerous on migration, the pathologist’s predicament underscores the heightened dangers being taken by these impelled to attempt to make a brand new life for themselves, in addition to the darkish months endured by their households searching for information of them.
The physique that Martinez was about to look at was male, African, aged between 30 and 35. Like hundreds of others, he had made a treacherous Atlantic crossing of roughly 2,000 km (1,242 miles) from West Africa, crammed into an open-topped boat.
He died the day earlier than, apparently of hypothermia attributable to many hours in chilly, moist circumstances with out shelter.
Up to now this 12 months round 20,000 irregular migrants have arrived on El Hierro, in accordance with the Pink Cross. That is about half the overall of greater than 40,000 who reached the Canary Islands archipelago over the interval — itself a brand new report.
Migrant arrivals to the Canaries rose 12% between January and October, in accordance with Spain’s inside ministry. However the variety of lifeless or disappeared was up 61% in the identical interval to 891, in accordance with estimates by the Worldwide Group for Migration (IOM).
It says the route is the second-deadliest on this planet and since solely partial knowledge is out there, its estimates are conservative. The Pink Cross believes nearly all of deceased migrants by no means even attain the Canaries, however both drown or their lifeless our bodies are thrown overboard.
Spain has no official database of lifeless migrants: It solely counts these arriving alive, mentioned an inside ministry spokesperson.
“The causes of dying are nearly at all times the identical: dehydration, hypothermia and ingesting seawater,” mentioned Martinez.
Migrants barely eat or drink potable water within the roughly six-day crossing, Martinez mentioned – when he opens a corpse he would not discover any meals stays, and any hint of water “smells like seawater.”
“BATHIE BARRY”
On this case, El Hierro’s authorities had a lead on the person’s id. One other migrant who arrived on the identical boat had come ahead, mentioned he was a relative, and that the lifeless man got here from Senegal and his title was Bathie Barry.
Confirming the identities of the lifeless can take months. Most migrants throw their ID playing cards overboard earlier than reaching shore for concern of deportation, mentioned a Spanish safety supply. The logic is that if they’re unidentified, it is going to be more durable for authorities to show their nation of origin and ship them again.
Martinez famous within the post-mortem report that the deceased had a number of tooth damaged and lacking.
The pathologist took a blood pattern. This he would use to ship DNA to a lab in Tenerife, which might add the knowledge right into a database of lacking folks to match in opposition to data of these already reported.
That course of can take as much as two months, Martinez mentioned.
In his expertise, he added, no match is present in over 90% of migrant deaths: It is too sophisticated to hint relations or have them securely present DNA samples from Africa.
Two of the three forensic law enforcement officials primarily based in El Hierro took fingerprints and footage of the physique to add right into a legislation enforcement database.
VANISHED IN THE OCEAN
The surge in migration to the Canaries is one among a number of components behind the rising deaths and disappearances, mentioned Andrea Garcia Borja, performing coordinator of the IOM’s Lacking Migrants Venture. It tallies estimates of deaths and disappearances through information articles, official sources and impartial investigations.
Boats have been coming from additional away in West Africa, with smugglers packing in as much as 300 folks on every craft, she mentioned. Smuggling networks have exploited instability within the Sahel area, the place an Islamist rebellion is raging, and are dispatching extra boats than previously, in accordance with the European Union border company Frontex.
In September, solely 27 migrants have been discovered alive after a ship mentioned by Spain’s coast guard to hold 84 folks capsized. It was the Canaries’ worst shipwreck on report; an area choose is investigating the accident.
9 folks have been buried in El Hierro. The rest are believed to have sunk into the ocean.
Martinez mentioned he obtained a name at 3am to take care of the lifeless.
On the time, El Hierro solely had two cadaver fridges — every with house for one physique — so Martinez positioned the seven different corpses in a room usually used for wakes, which may be cooled near zero levels Celsius.
Martinez, whose grandfather embalmed the physique of Spain’s former dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, mentioned he had by no means labored with migrants earlier than he got here to the island.
The absence of grieving households with their urgent questions, he mentioned, makes it simpler to keep up a medical distance.
“The emotional attachment that accompanies dying is lacking,” he mentioned.
The island has one post-mortem desk, in a room with out air-conditioning. Typical autumn noon temperatures attain round 20 levels Celsius (68 Fahrenheit), so pathologists often open a door onto the road, blocking the view with a hospital display screen.
INTO THE VOID
El Hierro is only one instance of the void into which migrants are launched once they board smugglers’ boats.
“To the very best of my data, there isn’t any particular protocol for the search and identification of lacking migrants in Spain, any European nation or the USA,” mentioned Borja, the IOM’s Lacking Migrants official.
The IOM mentioned in a 2021 report that Spain lacked particular procedures associated to the search, investigation and identification of lacking or lifeless migrants. It known as for the creation of a centralised mechanism.
An IOM Spain spokesperson mentioned he was unaware whether or not Spain had utilized these suggestions. Spain’s justice ministry didn’t reply to questions on whether or not it had.
Following the September shipwreck, NGO Caminando Fronteras – which runs a hotline for migrant boats in misery – mentioned the Spanish authorities have utilized double requirements of their response to migrant deaths in contrast with different maritime casualties.
“Spain doesn’t apply the identical legal guidelines and protocols to somebody that suffers a tragedy on a yacht or a fishing vessel to people who die on a migrant boat,” the NGO’s founder Helena Maleno instructed Reuters.
A spokesperson for Spain’s transport ministry, which oversees maritime coverage, mentioned the maritime authority doesn’t examine migrant boat accidents to find out potential administrative failures, as a result of the boats usually are not licensed and lack possession data.
Abroad diplomatic places of work can cooperate in dealing with dying declarations following an air or maritime accident, however Spain’s international affairs and justice ministries didn’t reply to requests for touch upon once they had.
The Spanish inside ministry spokesperson mentioned Spain’s justice system and Civil Guard police examine circumstances of migrant deaths within the sea if there may be proof of corpses lacking, however declined to elaborate.
To attempt to fill the hole, in 2021 the Pink Cross launched a programme to collect details about individuals who disappear or die whereas migrating to the Canaries.
In about 40% of circumstances, the Pink Cross informally identifies lifeless migrants by way of proof or interviews with buddies or households, mentioned Silvia Cruz, who works within the programme.
“SMALL TRIBUTE”
The day after the post-mortem, the deceased migrant’s physique was interred throughout the island in a concrete grave in a wall of the El Pinar cemetery, on the foot of lava fields and surrounded by goats and shrubs.
It was marked together with his case file quantity, his date of dying and the phrases “Bathie Barry” and “Immigrant.” Migrants occupy greater than 30 primarily anonymous slots out of virtually 1,000 within the burial partitions.
None of those that travelled with Barry may attend the ceremony. They have been being held in police custody or in hospital.
The Pink Cross contacted the shelter the place his relative was staying to supply assist passing phrase of his dying by way of its world community, Cruz mentioned.
It was a fast, silent interment attended by six folks: 4 officers and two volunteer mourners who purchased flowers. Considered one of them positioned crimson, pink and purple blooms on the grave.
Some have been inside just a little paper mannequin boat.
“Wherever their households are, we would like them to know that we’re right here to accompany them and pay a small tribute,” mentioned the volunteer, Haridian Marichal, 38.
Final month, the regional authorities put in six new cadaver fridges within the port. The cemetery has requested an extension as it’s operating out of house.
This text was produced by Reuters information company. It has not been edited by International South World.
