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Date Published: 19/10/2020

ARCHIVED - More than 1500 irregular immigrants have reached Spanish shores in the last week

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

Most of the boats arrived this weekend and the Canary Islands has been particularly badly affected this week.

The good weather and calm seas have prompted a surge in the numbers of irregular migrants attempting to enter Europe via the Spanish coastline in the last week, the Canary Islands in particular targeted by the small boats (pateras) used to cross from the African Continent into the Spanish peninsula.

In the early part of the year the Covid crisis caused a temporary pause in the numbers of migrants entering Spain using small boats as the borders of Morocco and Algeria were closed due to the covid pandemic, but gradually the numbers are recovering and in the last few weeks there has been a notable increase in traffic across the Mediterranean, the growth in traffic from Algeria very noticeable in areas such as the Murcia region which has been targeted by organised traffickers, with several “waves” of pateras.

Across Europe the number of illegal border detentions at Europe’s external borders fell by 21% in the first nine months of this year to around 72 500, largely because of a drop in arrivals in Eastern and Western Mediterranean countries, according to preliminary calculations by the Frontex border force.
Routes to Spain are listed amongst the Western Mediterranean migrant route and there were nearly 300 detections of illegal border crossings in the Western Mediterranean during September, 9% more than in August.

The total for the first nine months of 2020 stood at nearly 11 000, or 40% less than in the same period in the previous year, due principally to the absence of any activity during the lockdown period.
Algerians accounted for nearly two-thirds of all detections on this route this year, while Moroccans were the second most represented nationality.

This week;
Info gathered from regional media:
On Sunday, a dozen boats arrived in the Canary Islands with 319 immigrants on board: 9 reaching Gran Canaria, with 175 people; 2 in Lanzarote, with 32 people on board, and another in Tenerife, with 112 passengers.

In the Balearic Islands, a total of 35 immigrants were intercepted on Sunday on the coasts of the Pitiusas -Ibiza and Formentera- in two patera-type boats, and seven miles south of Cabrera in another boat.

In the afternoon, the Civil Guard located a boat in the Ses Salines area of Mallorca, with seven people on board and another two in which 11 immigrants were travelling, in the Santanyí area.

Six boats with at least 64 people on board, including several minors, arrived on the Alicante coastline during Sunday landing at Arenales de Elche, Altea, Calpe, El Campello and Benidorm.
218 immigrants (all Algerians) are reported to have reached the Murcian coastline in 18 boats during the weekend.

Saturday:
427 immigrants on Saturday
At dawn, Salvamento Marítimo rescued some 200 people who were traveling in five boats, spotted while they were heading to the Canarian archipelago.

In the Alicante municipalities of Calp and Teulada, two boats arrived with eight people in each of the boats. Of the 16 people who reached the Alicante coast, 15 were men and one was a woman.

In Andalusia, about 125 people, including minors and at least one baby, arrived aboard boats throughout this Saturday. Of these, 61 were transferred to the port of Algeciras (Cádiz), 18 reached Motril (Granada) and 44 to Almería. By Sunday evening the total for the Andalucía Region had risen to 326 for the two days according to regional media.

More than 500 during the week
To these must be added the 522 migrants who reached the Spanish coastline during the week. 298 are reported to have arrived on Friday.

Friday; a boat with 58 immigrants on board reached the coast of Fuerteventura, in the Morro Jable area. 58 people were traveling on the boat (54 men and 4 women). Salvamento Marítimo also intercepted a dinghy with 21 immigrants on Friday when they were near the Maspalomas Lighthouse, in San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria). This patera joins another that arrived in the morning with 32 people on board, who were transferred to the Arguineguín Pier, in Mogán.

Maritime Rescue and Civil Guard vessels rescued two boats with 33 immigrants on board as they headed towards the Canary archipelago. The boats were intercepted in the south of the island of Gran Canaria and were also taken to the port of Arguineguín, along with another vessel containing 72 immigrants, which was located about three miles south of Tenerife.

In Ceuta, Salvamento Marítimo rescued 16 people, all of them of Maghreb origin, when a boat was located six miles northeast of Punta Almina.

On Tuesday, the 13th, 129 immigrants reached the Canary Islands spread across three boats. On Wednesday 14th, 117 migrants also arrived in the Canary Islands in four boats, three of them occupied by 45 people who arrived in Gran Canarias and another with 72 which was transferred to the Tenerife port of Los Cristianos.

On Thursday 53 immigrants were detected; 32 reached the Arguineguín Pier (Gran Canaria) after being intercepted by Salvamento Marítimo, which also rescued another boat with 21 immigrants when they were near the Maspalomas Lighthouse, in San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria) .

Increase of boats to the Canary Islands

The Canary Islands has noted a significant increase in irregular migrants since the beginning of the year of more than 600%. The president of the Canary Islands, Angel Víctor Torres, has warned this week that the migratory crisis the islands are currently suffering is already similar to that of 2006 or 2007 and has called for the involvement of the European Union (EU), saying that "the Canary Islands are as European as Brussels", stating that the islands lack the capability to assume responsibility for all of the migrants reaching the islands, “because this is absolutely impossible for us to do."

NB: The migrants are referred to as “irregular immigrants” by the EU; the Spanish media tend to call them “sin papeles” meaning those with no paperwork entering the country illegally, others refer to them as illegal migrants. The phrase irregular migrants is used on MT in an attempt to convey that these are not refugees, but economic migrants, in this case from Algeria, entering Spain and the EU in an illegal fashion, without passports or documentation and without any legal right to enter the EU as Algeria is not an EU member and there is no migration agreement between the two countries.