The NGO Caminando Fronteras has reported the disappearance of at least three small boats carrying 81 migrants, including two babies and a dozen women, which had set sail from Algeria over the past few days bound for the Balearics. The three disappearances, which have been reported by the relatives of the potential victims, come as 410 migrants aboard 23 boats have arrived in the region this week.
According to Helena Maleno, head of Caminando Fronteras, based on the information available, two of these boats left the coast of Algeria last Sunday. One of them was carrying 29 people of sub-Saharan origin on board and the second, another 30 sub-Saharans, including three women and two babies. The third boat reported missing left on Tuesday with 22 people on board, including seven women. All were Somali nationals except one, who was of Sudanese origin.
“The families are very distressed. And those of the people who left on Sunday are even more so, because they should have been located or rescued by now,” Maleno told Europa Press. The activist stressed that the difficulties faced by migrants during the crossing are much worse for babies. “The sea, the cold, hypothermia, the food... It’s a very risky situation,” she warned.
The organisation is in contact with the families of the potential victims, who have contacted them as they have not heard from them despite several days having passed since they set sail from Algeria, and is offering them support. They have also passed this information on to the Maritime Rescue Service so that they can eventually carry out a search for these boats. For example, they have provided the telephone number of one of the migrants on board the boat that left on Tuesday, which, however, is not responding.
“Many boats are arriving and we are always concerned about those that fall by the wayside due to engine failure or because they are substandard. Many of them are those of sub-Saharan Africans, who travel in the worst conditions,” said Maleno.
According to the report “Monitoring the Right to Life” produced annually by Caminando Fronteras, in 2025 at least 1,037 migrants disappeared while trying to cross the so-called Algerian route, which connects the North African country with the Balearics and the eastern coast of the mainland.
According to the NGO, the Balearics has become the ‘most dangerous’ part of this journey and is now a ‘laboratory of the necro-border’, that is, ‘a space where criminalisation, necropolitics and the progressive erosion of international law converge, especially for the protection of the right to life’.