Donate

Missing migrants

Western Africa Atlantic route

The Missing Migrants Project of the International Organization for Migration recorded 1,214 deaths and disappearances in 2025 on the Atlantic route from Western Africa towards the Canary Islands. At least 730 more people were reported missing at sea on this crossing, and their deaths could not be verified.

Atlantic · Canary Islands

Annual deaths and disappearances on the Western Africa Atlantic route to the Canary Islands, 2014 to 2025, drawn from the open Missing Migrants Project dataset as updated in late September 2026. Recent years are revised as late reports arrive, so the last bar can differ from the totals quoted in the text.

Annual deaths and disappearances on the Western Africa Atlantic route to the Canary Islands, 2014 to 2025, drawn from the open Missing Migrants Project dataset as updated in late September 2026. Recent years are revised as late reports arrive, so the last bar can differ from the totals quoted in the text.

Chart by Fix Planet from Missing Migrants Project data of the International Organization for Migration, via the Humanitarian Data Exchange, licence Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/). Dataset page: https://data.humdata.org/dataset/missing-migrants-project-data

What it is

The Atlantic route leads by boat from the coasts of Western Africa to the Canary Islands, a part of Spain. The crossing can take days or weeks on the open ocean. In February 2026 the Missing Migrants Project of the International Organization for Migration reported that 1,214 deaths and disappearances were recorded on this route in 2025. Its annual report of April 2026 describes the crossing as one where shipwrecks are very difficult to document, because few search and rescue services operate there.

Why it matters

The annual report says that more than 1,200 deaths were confirmed on this route for the second year running, even though the number of people arriving in the Canary Islands by sea fell from over 46,000 in 2024 to under 18,000 in 2025. The organization writes that journeys have become longer and riskier. Some boats are never found: in 2025 three vessels carrying the remains of 42 people were later found drifting as far away as Brazil and the Caribbean after leaving for the Canary Islands.

How to read it

The figure of 1,214 counts deaths and disappearances that were verified. The annual report adds that at least 730 more people were reported missing at sea on the Atlantic crossing, among them what the organization calls invisible shipwrecks: entire boats reported missing with no information on a rescue or interception. These people come on top of the 1,214. The count is best read next to the number of arrivals: fewer boats reached the islands in 2025, and still more than 1,200 deaths were confirmed.

Limits

Evidence is scarce on this route, and the organization writes that boats disappear without a trace. The project counts what is reported by official records, media, non-governmental organisations and surveys of migrants. The figure of 1,214 was published in February 2026; the open dataset now lists 1,218 for 2025 because of later reports.

Sources