Migrant Disappearances across the Atlantic: Mourning and Grassroots Knowledge Production in Morocco

The Canary Islands route across the Atlantic Ocean is considered by several actors in the field of migration, notably the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, as the deadliest migration region in the world, with more than 6000 deaths in 2023 (Caminando Fronteras 2023). This shift to this dangerous 'Irregular' maritime route to the EU in recent years is a result of the European Union's policy of restricting migration and externalising borders to North and West African countries. However, despite this increase in border deaths and disappearances, this region has received little public attention compared to the Mediterranean, thus remaining invisible. In fact, spaces in which migrants 'disappear' are produced through a complex interplay of policies, actors, practices, infrastructures and geographical conditions, in this case the maritime border area between Spain, Morocco and West Africa. While the areas of responsibility for border protection, sea rescue and state statistical recording in this region remain ambiguous, this paper examines how and why the lack of systematic efforts by states to count and account for these disappearances contributes to their invisibility. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Morocco, the research explores non-state practices of mourning, counting and identifying the disappeared, as carried out by NGOs, activist groups and families of the disappeared. The study examines the knowledge produced by these actors and assesses whether these grassroots practices of mourning and bottom-up knowledge are becoming socially and politically prominent, particularly in relation to states and resource-heavy organisations such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).