The horrors of the sea

Juan Medina has been following migrants trying to reach Europe for two decades - the Reuters photographer won a World Press award for this image taken in 2004. As the number of deaths at sea rises, he talks about his images.

   

 

  Warning: Readers may find some of the images disturbing

I started taking photos of migrants because I was living in Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands working as a photographer for the local paper, and they were coming over from all over sub-Saharan Africa.
What happened on that day in 2004 was no different to what had been happening for years, and would keep happening.
The journey across the sea to Europe is taken by a lot of people in search of a better life. At any moment boats can capsize, they can run out of gas, the motor can break down - and they're vulnerable to the cold weather.

That day, the migrants were on a small boat, a patera, full of people. They had been on board for many hours.
As they reached the Canary Islands, there was a Civil Guard patrol waiting to detain them. The migrants started to board the larger vessel but when they all moved to one side, their boat capsized.
Twenty-nine of them were rescued. Nine died. The people on board were all men. Many came from Mali, some from Ivory Coast and some from Ghana.  Memorials for dead migrants at the cemetery of Antigua in Fuerteventura
The survivors went
through the usual process on their arrival - migrants are held in a detention centre for foreigners for 40 days, then they are either put on a flight to their countries of origin, or they are flown to mainland Spain.
I know what happened to two of the men on that boat - Isa and Ibrahim. I met them the day they were rescued. They are the men I photographed being pulled out of the sea.
They were sent to Spain - Isa was taken to Valencia and Ibrahim to Murcia.
They made it very clear what was going on back home in Mali. They come from large families. In Isa's case for example, they depend on crops and the harvest year by year. Work is scarce. They didn't have any opportunities. They were really living in a situation of extreme need.
Despite the risks they decided to make the journey. For them it was the only way out. They thought it would be worth it to try to help their families. Perhaps they didn't know exactly what was going to happen to them minute by minute, but they knew it was dangerous.
I went to their homes in Mali to meet their families and was greeted with open arms, with a lot of love - in the exact opposite way to how the Spanish greet migrants here. Their families told me their story so that I could understand why their sons were willing to risk their lives.
The main thing that struck me is the terrible living conditions they left behind. They risked dying at sea but they faced even greater pressures trying to survive at home. They did it because they had no other way out. It's not because they were adventure seekers.
It made their families incredibly sad - first, the pain because their children left, and second, knowing that their children could also die.