Spain's Caminando Fronteras NGO recorded 517 deaths on the Algeria-to-Spain migration route in 2024, making it the world's second-deadliest sea crossing after the Atlantic route to the Canary Islands.

The figure appears in Caminando Fronteras' latest annual report, published December 26. It marks a sharp rise from 464 deaths in 2022 and 191 in 2021. Twenty-six boats carrying migrants "completely disappeared" at sea in 2024, with no survivors or wreckage recovered.

Who is taking the route?

Caminando Fronteras recorded 13,952 migrants using the Algeria-Spain route in 2024. Passengers pay between 2,000 and 4,000 euros per crossing, often for boats unsuitable for open water.

• Departures leave from Oran, Mostaganem, Tipaza, and Algiers
• Common Spanish arrival zones include Almeria, Cartagena, Murcia, and Alicante
• 40% of those boarding now come from countries outside Algeria, including sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, and Palestine
• The remaining 60% are Algerian nationals, many from coastal wilayas

Profiles are increasingly vulnerable. The report notes the regular presence of unaccompanied teenage migrants and of young children travelling with mothers in transit. Caminando Fronteras wrote that many of these families "had previously passed through Libya and Tunisia before being pushed back into the desert."

How is the route shifting?

Since 2022, the Algerian route has moved east toward the Balearic Islands, an area with fewer rescue services. A total of 5,793 people arrived in the archipelago between January 1 and December 29, 2024 — a 154.3% increase from 2,278 arrivals in 2023, according to Spanish news agency EFE.

On December 29 alone, 18 people reached Formentera, followed by 74 migrants in three more boats hours later. The eastward shift has lengthened crossings. Caminando Fronteras warned: "The longer distances and greater risk of getting lost and ending up in the deepest parts of the Mediterranean made the crossing more dangerous for migrants taking this route."

The Spanish Civil Guard has flagged the same pattern. In a document consulted by Levante, the force wrote that tragedies on the route are "increasingly frequent" and that "corpses appear on the [Spanish] coast several days after [...] the rescue services have been alerted."

What happened in the November 2024 wreck?

One November 2024 departure left a beach in Algiers with 13 people aboard, aiming for Alicante. Five kilometres offshore, water entered the hull. An altercation with the boat's driver followed, and the vessel capsized.

"Everyone fell into the water, including a family with a 6-year-old girl and a baby," the cousin of one passenger, a 26-year-old Algerian fisherman named Youssef, told InfoMigrants. The Algerian coastguard was notified but lacked the correct coordinates. Passengers waited nearly six hours in open water without life jackets.

A group of young men who had watched the boat leave eventually found the wreck. The baby and his mother were already dead. Youssef and two other passengers remain missing.

Why are people leaving?

Algeria is not at war. But youth unemployment, including among graduates, has pushed record numbers of young Algerians toward the sea since the 2014 oil-price collapse.

"In Algeria, there is no war. But youth unemployment, even for graduates, pushes most of them to leave," Youssef's cousin said. "In this country, if you don't know anyone to help you, you have no future."

"And when you see most of the people you know leaving the country, finding happiness elsewhere, while you continue to struggle despite the years; leaving becomes your only goal."

Saïd Salhi, vice-president of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH), described the wave of family departures in 2021 as "an unprecedented family 'harga' [migration in French]."

Youssef himself had first tried legal channels, applying for visas to the European Union, Canada, and the United Kingdom. All were refused.

His mother still believes he is in a Spanish prison. The family has not told her that he is one of the missing.