00:00 A small cemetery on the Canary Islands.
00:03 Blank spaces stand out between the other plaques.
00:06 No name, no epitaph.
00:08 These are the graves of unknown African migrants.
00:11 There are now so many of these that the cemetery has had to expand.
00:15 Modu often comes here.
00:17 He survived the crossing from Senegal, but many people he knows didn't.
00:22 A good friend has been missing for three weeks.
00:29 This could be him, or anyone else around me who has died.
00:33 That's why I always feel incredibly sad when I'm here.
00:39 The number of migrants who've made it to the Canaries is at an all-time high,
00:44 but so too is the number of those who've died attempting the crossing.
00:48 Few carry any documents, so identifying them is difficult.
00:51 The EU requires all recovered bodies to be identified and properly buried,
00:56 but in reality this rarely happens.
00:59 Raico Guerra manages the cemetery in this small community.
01:03 He feels abandoned by his government.
01:06 He says he gets no help in giving the migrants a dignified burial.
01:10 Just a number, put in that box, finish.
01:16 When we take the phone and call to Madrid or to the superior governments,
01:22 they always say, "Don't worry, we'll see, don't worry, we'll see."
01:27 But we don't have any solution.
01:29 There are only a few experts on the island who can help identify the many dead.
01:34 Javier Tapia is a pathologist.
01:37 He and his team gather DNA samples, dental analyses and photos of the deceased.
01:42 Their final report is often as far as they get.
01:48 Tapia says the past months have been exceptionally hard.
01:52 The worst are the autopsies of small children.
01:59 This is really difficult to process emotionally.
02:04 You feel terrible and you just want to cry for a day or two.
02:08 It's actually quite traumatic to be confronted with all that.
02:16 Modu continues to search for more information about his missing friend.
02:20 His relatives in Senegal keep asking him for news via WhatsApp.
02:25 They've given up hope of getting information through official channels.
02:29 I'm at my wits' end.
02:36 His wife and his young daughter are waiting for news.
02:41 And I don't know who to turn to.
02:44 We just want to know if he's still alive or if he died.
02:49 Maybe a miracle will happen, says Modu.
02:53 But he knows that for all those unidentified people buried here on the island,
02:57 there are many more unaccounted for, lost at sea.
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