Spain’s two enclaves on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, Ceuta and Melilla, share the only land borders of the EU with Africa. The enclaves sporadically experience waves of attempted crossings by migrants trying to reach Europe.
Many of the migrants were intercepted near or on El Tarajal beach next to the Ceuta-Morocco border, a spokesperson for the Guardia Civil police said.
“There was pressure and we handled it with Morocco,” he said. The spokesperson added that the mist had lifted by Monday morning.
Police have intercepted an average of around 700 migrants trying to enter Ceuta each day since Thursday, with up to 1,500 people making the attempt on Sunday night, according to Cristina Perez, the Spanish government’s representative in Ceuta.
Moroccan nationals detained during the crossings are immediately sent back to Morocco unless they are underage or seeking asylum, Perez said.
People of other nationalities are taken to special centers where they are given shelter and released after a few days.
Another unknown number of people have managed to sneak illegally into the enclave without being detained by the police, a spokesperson for Perez’s office said.
=Two years ago, at least 23 people died in a stampede when about 2,000 migrants tried to storm into Melilla, pushing down the border fence.
Meanwhile, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will start his second visit this year to West Africa on Tuesday, aiming to curb migration to the Canary Islands and to counter the Russian presence in the Sahel region.
The West African migration route has seen a 154 percent surge this year, with 21,620 people crossing to the Canary Islands in the first seven months, according to data from the European Union border agency Frontex.
The wave has stretched resources on the Spanish archipelago, with local authorities saying they may have to house migrants in military camps or even in tents ahead of an expected rise in arrivals due to calmer conditions in the Atlantic Ocean.
Spanish authorities fear that as many as 150,000 more migrants from Africa may be set to make the perilous crossing in the coming months.
According to Frontex data, nearly half of the new arrivals are Malians, forced out of their country by a conflict and economic crisis in which the Russian mercenary group Wagner is involved.
Sanchez is focusing on strengthening relations with Mauritania, Senegal, and Gambia, the main departure points for migrant boats. The first two share land borders with Mali.
The crew of a Greek coast guard vessel opened fire on a speedboat smuggling migrants — including several children — from neighboring Turkiye killing one passenger, Greek authorities said Friday ( August 23).
A coast guard statement said shots were fired, first into the air and then at the speedboat’s engine “to avert the direct threat to the patrol boat and its crew” after the helmsman rammed the Greek patrol boat in a bid to escape arrest.
When the boat came to a halt, the statement said, the passenger was found fatally wounded, “probably by a bullet.”
The remaining 13 people on the plastic speedboat — 5 children, 7 men and a woman — were unharmed and were taken to the southeast Aegean Sea island of Symi. The dead passenger was identified as a 39-year-old man. His nationality was not immediately known.
The statement said the incident occurred northwest of Symi after the helmsman of the smuggling boat ignored multiple calls to stop. It said he “repeatedly carried out extremely dangerous maneuvers, ramming the patrol boat.”
The coast guard said the migrant smuggling vessel had been heading from the nearby Turkish coast to Symi.
Two of the men on the speedboat were arrested on suspicion of belonging to a migrant smuggling gang.
Thousands of migrants try to reach Greece’s eastern Aegean islands in small boats every year. In most cases they pay smuggling rings to carry them across, and in several incidents the Greek coast guard has reported attempted rammings by smugglers seeking to escape arrest.
Greece has been roundly criticized by human rights organizations over the treatment of migrants trying to reach its shores. In June, it denied a BBC report that accused its coast guard of brutal practices resulting in dozens of deaths.
According to data from the United Nations refugee agency, nearly 30,000 migrants have arrived illegally in Greece so far this year from Turkiye, and, increasingly, from Libya in North Africa.
The number of arrivals is slightly lower than in Italy and Spain, the main destinations for migrants trying to reach Europe illegally. Most people heading for Greece are Afghan, Syrian or Egyptian nationals.
On August 25,2024,At least 13 people have died when a migrant boat sank off Yemen, also leaving 14 missing, a UN agency said Sunday, in the latest disaster on the perilous migration route.
“Thirteen people have tragically lost their lives and 14 others remain missing after a migrant boat capsized off the coast of Yemen’s Taiz governorate on Tuesday,” the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.
The vessel had departed from Djibouti carrying 25 Ethiopian migrants and two Yemeni nationals, according to the UN agency.
Eleven men and two women were among those confirmed dead, as search operations continue to locate the missing, including the Yemeni captain and his assistant, the IOM said.
It noted that the cause of the shipwreck remains unclear.
“This latest tragedy is a stark reminder of the perils faced by migrants on this route,” said Matt Huber, the acting chief of IOM’s mission in Yemen.
Tens of thousands of migrants set off yearly from the Horn of Africa, seeking to escape conflict, natural disasters or poor economic prospects and sailing across the Red Sea in a bid to reach the oil-rich Gulf.
The IOM recorded over 97,200 migrant arrivals in Yemen in 2023, surpassing the previous year’s numbers.
The latest shipwreck follows similar incidents off Yemen in June and July that left dozens dead.
Migrants who do reach Yemen often encounter further threats to their safety, as the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country has been mired in civil war for nearly a decade.
