Alarm Phone: Western Mediterranean and Atlantic Regional Analysis, 1 September 2024- 28 February 2025

Tahíche Prison, Lanzarote, Canary Islands. Source: AP Canarias

1. Introduction

All along their migration paths, people on the move are confronted with many forms of violence by states and their representatives. The border regime, which forces people to travel along increasingly dangerous and sometimes deadly routes, works hand in hand with the incarceration regime.

Having already written a report on the criminalisation of people on the move some time ago, we wanted to participate in the movement that attempts to make visible the places used by states to hide the repression they exert on those who defy border regimes on a daily basis. Writing about incarceration, in the context of our work at Alarm Phone, is an integral part of our fight for freedom of movement for all. Prisons, and all other places which detain people, are part of a continuum of violence which we condemn. Borders, prisons, and other places of detention all form part of a racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, and classist system of population control by states. In our fight for a world free from institutional violence, we must denounce all forms of incarceration and detention, including of people on the move and their allies. All of these places, from prisons to humanitarian camps, reproduce and participate in the global system of racial, social and economic apartheid that relies on the criminalisation of the people whom authorities wish to exclude from society, particularly racialised, migrating, trans and non-binary people, the poor and sex workers. We stand in solidarity with all prisoners, political or otherwise, who suffer violence at the hands of this carceral and punitive system.

In this report, we wish to address the violence associated with all forms of detention, in prison, in police custody, in humanitarian camps as well as in detention centres. These closed-off spaces are constantly being built and expanded in all the countries of the Western Mediterranean and Atlantic region. These enclosed spaces halt people’s journeys, either spontaneously or for long periods of time. As a tool of migration control, incarceration serves both to punish people on the move who have defied border regimes by exercising their freedom of movement, and to segregate and render invisible those who are considered undesirable in national territories. In addition to the violence of detention, which is described by the various authors writing in the following paragraphs, and the racism manifested in the policy and practice of arrest, incarceration and deportation, there is also the violence of absence, and that of being rendered invisible. As many members of Alarm Phone express, the first and foremost question is finding out who is locked up, where, and how the person feels. What are their needs? Do they need clothes, money, medication, books or any other object? Do they want to contact friends or family? Beyond the staggering numbers of people detained, it is a question of recreating a link between places of detention and the outside. A vital link which is often the only means of accessing the bare minimum (clothes, money for the canteen or to call their family, legal support, etc.).

Numerous criminal laws have been adopted, mainly since the 2000s, in order to imprison more and more and for longer periods of time – and particularly people on the move. Specifically, the laws to combat so-called people smugglers have led to the incarceration of thousands of people in Morocco, Spain, Senegal, Algeria, and Mauritania. In Spain and Morocco, for example, and particularly in the Canary Islands, a practice carried out by the authorities has now become widespread with the support of Frontex: Two people are arbitrarily arrested from each boat that arrives on the coast. Made the scapegoats of the violence of states’ border regime, these people risk up to several decades in prison. In Mauritania, as in Senegal, new detention centres for foreigners are being built: depriving people of their freedom and punishing them before deporting them. In Morocco, arbitrary arrests and roundups are a regular occurrence: People are arrested, sometimes locked up and forcibly moved to the south of the country and the Sahara. In Algeria, people on the move are arbitrarily taken back across the border to Niger or Mali and abandoned in the desert, endangering their lives.

In the face of all this violence, solidarity and resistance is being built and constantly strengthened. Every day, the members of Alarm Phone and our allies try to identify those who are imprisoned and detained and provide them with support, using the means available: from collecting clothes to seeking alternative legal support. With this report, we reaffirm our support for all those who suffer the violence of states’ border and prison regimes and continue the fight for freedom of movement for all!

2. Sea crossings and statistics

In 2024, Alarm Phone handled 146 cases along the Western Mediterranean and Atlantic routes, assisting at least 6,425 people on board these boats. According to UNHCR, 64,318 people arrived in Spain that year, meaning Alarm Phone supported approximately 10% of those who reached the country.

Figure 1: Arrivals in the Spanish state per year. Source: UNHCR SPAIN Weekly snapshot – Week 1 (30 Dec 2024 – 5 Jan 2025)

Between September 2024 and the end of February 2025, Alarm Phone handled 117 cases in the region, involving at least 5,932 people. Of these, 76 boats took the Atlantic route, 20 boats crossed the Alboran Sea, 40 boats departed from Algeria and one distress call came from the Strait of Gibraltar. During this period, 38 boats were rescued by Salvamento Marítimo, 19 boats arrived by themselves, 3 boats returned to shore, 11 boats were intercepted and 1 boat was rescued by a merchant vessel. However, the number of incidents in the Mediterranean and Atlantic regions remains alarmingly high. In the period of this analysis, 33 cases remain unclear and at least 6 shipwrecks occurred. This means at least 399 people have experienced shipwrecks, while the fate of 1,665 people remains unknown. We are aware of at least 154 missing persons, 135 survivors, and 76 confirmed deaths during the winter of 2024/2025.
Most of these tragedies happened on the most frequented route, the way across the Atlantic. It was – again – a record year of arrivals. 46,843 people made it to the Canary Islands – we welcome each and every one of them! This is not only significantly more than the 40,330 people in 2023 but also the highest number of all time. It is particularly noteworthy that arrivals can now peak at nearly any month of the year. The months with many departures due to favourable meteorological conditions are usually September to November; however, January and February of 2025 (as well as January and February of 2024) show that arrival numbers can also be very high in other months. The Salvamento Marítimo workers’ union CGT speaks of a “de-seasoning”, meaning crossings are not linked to certain seasons anymore. Yet, 2024 is also a record year of death. As the data from the NGO Caminando Fronteras show, 9,757 people died on the Atlantic route in 2024, the majority of deaths occurring between Mauritania and the Canary Islands. Unsurprisingly, this makes the Atlantic Route the most lethal crossing that we know of.

In every month we witnessed some devastating shipwreck. We mourn all the victims of the border regime and demand an end to the killing at sea. While we provide a more detailed list of the incidents in chapter 4, we want to highlight a few examples here to give a better picture of the extent/scale of these tragedies: Between 2 and 3 September, several boats that left from various points along the Algerian coast disappeared for several days. For some of them, there is no evidence of their arrival, so we fear that they are invisible shipwrecks and that their passengers have died tragically and have not been found or identified among the hundreds of corpses arriving on the coasts of Spain and Algeria every day. On 20 October 2024, another case from Senegal (Saloum/Djifèreon) saw 160-180 people reported missing. Alerts were sent to Mauritanian authorities, but there is no further information on their fate. (Source: Alarm Phone). On 26 November, eleven people left northern Morocco, attempting to reach Europe. While two survivors arrived in Almería, the fate of the remaining nine people is unknown. Our solidarity and thoughts go out to their families, who continue to wait for news. (Source: Alarm Phone). December was particularly deadly along the Atlantic and Algerian routes. A shipwreck resulted in bodies washing up on Algerian shores. In another distressing case, 18 people who left Tipaza, Algeria, on 29 December remain missing, despite authorities being informed. (Source: Alarm Phone). And the new year has begun just as tragically: On 2 January, a wooden boat that had departed from Nouakchott, carrying around 85-90 people, shipwrecked. Some survivors were found, and Alarm Phone is in contact with their relatives, trying to confirm names. (Source: Alarm Phone). Throughout the month of January, we received almost daily reports of bodies washed up on Algerian shores. Sometimes a dignified burial means a lot to the families of the people that went missing in the sea, and unfortunately, many of these bodies remain unidentified (Alarm Phone reported).

While the Atlantic route remains by far the most dangerous and most frequently chosen, Alarm Phone is being informed more and more about the tragedies occuring on the journey from Algeria. In the last months, several families have contacted Alarm Phone to report that they had lost contact with their loved ones who had departed on a boat from Algeria to Spain, either to the Balearic Islands or to some point on the Spanish mainland coast such as Alicante, Murcia or Almería. Many of the people come from Algeria, but we are aware of some people taking this route having started their journey from other places such as Somalia, Mali, Burkina Faso or Benin. Whether these developments can be interpreted to mean that there are more departures from Algeria or simply that more people in this region know about Alarm Phone and have built up enough trust to contact us cannot be determined with certainty.

The case is quite different when it comes to developments in the south of Morocco and in the Sahara, as members of Alarm Phone working there have reported that the places of departure have somewhat shifted. Due to the intense policing, daily harrassment and military deployments in the Sahara, many people looking for a crossing have now moved to Agadir. This is also mirrored in where departures take place: Since September 2024, only 2 out of 48 Alarm Phone cases in the Sahara and southern Morocco left from around Boujdour; all the others left from the Tarfaya, Tan-Tan and Guelmim areas. One of those notable exceptions was a horrible shipwreck of a boat that departed on 22 September 2024, with only 4 out of 60/61 people surviving. (Source: Alarm Phone). According to this shift in departures, the Canarian island of Lanzarote started receiving more people again, while previously most arrivals were in the westernmost island of El Hierro (due to many departures from Mauritania and Senegal).

3. Incarceration in the different countries of the WM

3.1. Morocco

In general, Morocco has an incarceration rate that is somewhat similar to its neighbouring countries in the North of Africa. Yet, two developments have caused NGOs and human rights defenders to raise the alarm: first of all, incarceration rates have grown in the past years, and secondly, a rather large percentage of prisoners (45%) is untried, meaning they are in prison awaiting trial. Furthermore, Morocco is under criticism for prison overcrowding, despite its 77 facilities all over the country and in the Sahara. According to the annual report published in November 2024 by the Moroccan Prison Observatory (OMP), these prisons run at an estimated 159% capacity, meaning that every detainee has only 1.75 square meters at their disposal. In addition, the report finds severe shortcomings when it comes to hygiene, the quality of food, and general facilities. Together with other civil society actors, the OMP calls for alternatives to incarceration. However, activists and journalists denouncing the injustice of incarceration often face heavy repression from authorities for this kind of work. Activists, journalists and others risk incarceration themselves.

According to official statistics from late 2023, only 1.5% of all prisoners are of foreign nationality. Out of those, 77% are African nationals, which would amount to roughly 1100 prisoners from African countries. Given that already the Laayoune prison has a very large group of West and Central African inmates (as AP members from Laayoune confirm), this can hardly be true. People on the move are incarcerated for a variety of reasons:

The 02-03 immigration act from 2003 stipulates that people on the move without a valid residence permit can receive several months of prison (Art. 42) or be held in custody before being deported (Art. 50). The law also contains provisions on the facilitation or organisation of migration, also punishable by several years of prison (Art. 52). Since its promulgation, the 02-03 immigration act has been severely criticised by activists since it criminalises people who exercise their right to freedom of movement. Harsh prison sentences are also provided by the 27-14 human trafficking act from 2016. Depending on the severity of the “crime”, prison sentences range from 5 to 10 years or even to a lifelong sentence.

As the different subchapters (3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3) show, people on the move are subjected to racist treatment in Moroccan prisons. Their basic needs (clothing, hygiene) are not sufficiently met, and they receive disproportionately harsh sentences due to a lack of legal council and interpreting.

In late 2022, Morocco’s General Delegation for Prison Administration and Reintegration already announced a 2022-2026 strategy for implementing better detention conditions (including e.g. better health care and psychological support) and enhancing social reintegration measures for prisoners. Given the dire problems outlined in the OMP 2024 report, there is an extensive need for action. However, if Morocco (like all other countries in the Western Med region) keeps imprisoning people for trumped-up charges, petty crimes and the mere exercise of their freedom of movement, we have serious doubts that building more prisons or installing better showers is going to change anything at all when it comes to the incarceration of people on the move.

3.1.1. North

In the Tanger region, people on the move are the frequent target of arbitrary arrests and pushbacks, following which they may be displaced to towns far from the border. Among these arrests and pushbacks, some people are detained on suspicion of offences related to illegal migration and given longer prison sentences if they are implicated in more serious crimes, such as organising convoys or drug smuggling. These charges are often made if people are caught with materials for preparing a departure or trying to climb the barrier at Ceuta, for example if found with life jackets, motor fuel or hooks for climbing the fence. Police will often also search phones for video or photo evidence of organising boat or drug and alcohol smuggling.

It is difficult to ascertain the precise number of departures from Tanger towards Spain since there is very high securitisation of the border and frequent arrests have reduced departures considerably, making it practically impossible for people on the move to launch a boat. Therefore, people are being forced to attempt the extremely dangerous Atlantic routes further south. Nevertheless, when boats are intercepted in the north, the police will search for 2-3 people to detain and accuse of being the ‘captain’, the smuggler or responsible for organising the voyage, in an attempt to scapegoat individuals for the violence of the border. This is hugely arbitrary and does not involve an investigation, for example the ‘captain’ suspect is often merely the person closest to the engine.

According to procedure, people are detained for a maximum of three days before they see a prosecutor who determines their charge; then they may be detained in a local prison before trial for an indeterminate period of time, which can be many months. There are four known prisons in and around Tanger: the old prison complex on the Mesnana/Boukhalef road was closed and replaced by a new prison opened in 2024, Tanger locale 2 prison, as part of the ongoing prison reform by the DGAPR. There are two more prisons in Hjar Nhal and one in Asilah. In the Tétouan prison, which is also awaiting new facilities, claims of mistreatment were raised last year, but denied by the authorities.

The old Tanger prison had been overcrowded and dilapidated for years. It was finally replaced by new facilities in 2024. Source: AP

In Tanger, Black people routinely face discrimination from the police and justice system, like elsewhere in Morocco. Mostly, prisoners are detained for organising journeys or driving boats, less for charges involving their legal residence status. Activists have heard testimonies of deplorable conditions in Tanger local 2 prison. As one activist described, ‘once you are found guilty of a crime you are no longer considered human’. There are reports of severe overcrowding, very limited space with sometimes as many as 60-70 people inhabiting each cell, and inadequate food. For people on the move, prison is very isolating as non-Moroccan nationals are often unable to receive visits or stay in touch with their families because of the prohibitive cost of telephone top-ups. As a result, many people leave prison with very poor mental and physical health. An activist in AP Tanger recently met a Guinean woman who was completely malnourished after being incarcerated. In January, there were also reports of measles outbreaks in Tanger locale 2 prison, further exemplifying the poor conditions inside prisons.

3.1.2. East

There is a high number of Moroccan-national unaccompanied children that arrive in Nador province without parents or relatives with the intention to cross to the Spanish peninsula. Lately, also groups consisting of underage girls, the youngest around 12 years old, were spotted among these so-called ‘harraga’. The local authorities frequently confine, if not to say incarcerate, these minors in the “Centre de Sauvegarde de l’Enfant” in Nador city under the pretext of protection (see also our report on conditions for minors in the Nador region). There is no access to appropriate educational or psychological programs; the minors are isolated from support networks and outside contacts. Material conditions are precarious; the diet is insufficient and unbalanced.

Foreign adult citizens are taken into custody for offences related to their migratory status (irregular entry, no residence permit, attempted border crossings). They are being locked up in informal detention centers, like the infamous Arekmane detention center in a village east of Nador city, or in police stations, awaiting deportations further away from the border zone. The Arekmane center is a former socio-educational centre but has been requisitioned by the authorities to lock up people on the move arrested near the coast. Not even the National Human Rights Council (CNDH) has access to it. (See also our previous report “The hidden battlefield” from 2019.)

Foreign nationals who are sentenced for border-related offences   are being held in Nador prison. People are tried e.g. for accusations of ‘trafficking’, for supposedly organising ‘attacks’ on the border fences and in previous years also for being assumed captains, but sea crossings by foreign nationals are currently very rare. Arrests and accusations remain highly arbitrary. Sentences are harsh – just in November 2024, 14 foreign nationals who had been detained at the fence between Nador and Melilla were sentenced to 10 years in prison. “The conditions in prisons are deplorable” reports C., activist on the ground, who tries to channel support to the detainees.

“Officials overcrowed cells with up to 2 inmates per place, managers refuse to provide hygiene kits and clothing to migrant detainees, and food is of poor quality. There are reports of discrimination by managers against Black detainees by limiting their access to medical care and activities. There are also reports of violence and abuse of vulnerable prisoners. The authorities refuse to protect the rights of incarcerated migrants.”

There are reports of hunger strikes for better conditions, and apart from solidarity among the detainees, who often share their limited ressources, the communities and activists try to render support in any possible way. There are also independent organisations like AMDH Nador and GADEM who observe and monitor detention conditions, document human right violations and follow trials against people on the move in court.

3.1.3. South

Location of prisons in the South of Morocco and the Sahara. Source: AP

In the South of Morocco and the Sahara, there are several large prisons where people on the move are being held: Dakhla, Laayoune, Smara (east of Laayoune), Bouizakarne (north of Guelmim), Tan-Tan and Aït Melloul (Agadir). In accordance with the new prison strategy adopted by Morrocan authorities (see the introduction), “reinsertion measures” are emphasized (e.g. in the Dakhla prison), for instance professional training for detainees. In addition, a new prison was opened in Laayoune in 2023, on the northern outskirts of the town. The notorious “Carcel Negra” (“Black Prison”) in the centre of Laayoune had been vastly overcrowded for years, with terrible living conditions. With the new prison, the living conditions have somewhat improved for the regular inmates; however, for people on the move, living and hygienic conditions remain intolerable. Since a lot of daily necessities (food, clothing, toileteries) are provided by family members or associations, people from countries such as Mali, Senegal and Ivory Coast are cut of from support. Instead, they have to rely on the little that local associations supporting people on the move can provide. AP Laayoune explains:

“Sometimes, there are prisoners who have only one piece of clothing that they live with for months without being able to change. That’s why associations sometimes call for donations. But these prisoners can only be visited by family members, and they are in the country of origin and thus do not have the financial means to come and help them. Sometimes, members of the consulates or certain associations are also granted access to the prisons, but that’s not always the case.”

Family members from other countries such as Senegal have already started self-organising to support their loved ones in prison; however, this work is incredibly difficult due to the lack of information and assistance from authorities.

Since criminalisation against people on the move is so prevalent, a large percentage of prisons in the South and Sahara is by now filled with people from West and Central Africa. The AP team in Laayoune explains how this process of criminalisation works:

“Hundreds of people are accused of being boat drivers or having organised illegalised crossings. They are prosecuted by the Moroccan criminal system in order to deter migration. They are accused of being smugglers, captains or responsible for navigation on a boat. Moroccan authorities never respect their right to an interpreter for the judicial proceedings. Sometimes, people are beaten so that they will divulge who was the captain. Often, people are accused without any proof just because whenever a boat is intercepted, the authorities need to find two or three people to arrest as ‘responsible’. The other boat passengers are sent to a detention centre for one or two weeks, before they are taken elsewhere in Morocco. Those accused of being the captain are taken to the police station and then to prison, where they wait for the trial for a period of two to four months. The judgement itself is completely arbitrary, and there is no defence lawyer; sometimes people are condemned by a judge on a video call. The sentences are absurd, mostly from 5 to 10 years of prison, sometimes even 15 years. When the accused is able to afford a lawyer, they can receive a prison sentence of 3 months to 3 years only. Sometimes families are able to provide funds for a lawyer, but that’s not often the case.”

3.2. Incarceration in Mauritania

Introduction

‘The country has become bogged down in the role of zealous guardian of a world order as absurd as a mirage.’ ELY Moustapha

In 2024, Mauritania was the main country of departure for boats bound for the Canary Islands (54% of the 658 vessels that arrived in 2024). Since 2021, the EU has strengthened its collaboration with Mauritania through a joint operational partnership (JOP), with a budget of 4.55 million euros. This project aims ‘to support the fight against migrant smuggling and the management of irregular migration in Mauritania’.

In this context, there has been an evolution in the legislative framework and in the means of depriving people on the move of their freedom

Culled from https://alarmphone.org/