Modesto Martinez is ELO’s only forensic pathologist based on the tiny Canary Island he is called out day and night to deal with dead African migrants elanar Cemetery shows the scale of the crisis here the lifeless bodies of migrants occupy more than 30 slots in burial walls the Canary Islands have seen a record surge in arrivals from West Africa this year but the rate of those going missing or dying on the treacherous Atlantic Crossing is growing five times faster than those making it alive the latest available data shows processing the increase in corpses hasn’t just added strain to the Island’s limited resources trying to confirm their identities can take months and in many cases it’s impossible