Madrid: The number of migrants arriving on Spain’s southern coast has more than doubled in 2017 from last year as they avoid passing through conflict-wracked Libya on their way to Europe.
Eight boats carrying 380 people have been rescued since Wednesday in the Alboran Sea, which connects northeastern Morocco and southeastern Spain, in the Western Mediterranean.
Last week, an inflatable dinghy that had apparently set out from Morocco with 52 people aboard was flipped over after being hit by a strong wave. Only three survivors were rescued by the Spanish coastguard.
The United Nations Refugee Agency called it “the worst tragedy in the last decade in the Spanish Mediterranean” involving migrants.
The Italian sea route remains the most popular for migrants. Italy has accepted around 85,000 of the 100,000 people who have arrived in Europe by sea this year according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
But the Spanish route further west is gathering pace. Between January and June, more than 6,400 people were rescued at sea between Morocco and Algeria and Spain, according to the IOM, compared to 8,100 during all of 2016.
The vast majority of migrants who come to Europe are sub-Saharan Africans fleeing poverty or conflict in their home countries.
Most leave nations such as Guinea, Gambia or the Ivory Coast and make their way to Libya where they hope to cross over by boat to Italy.
But the word is getting out that this route is becoming more risky, with “ever harder controls”, said Helena Maleno Garzon of migrant aid agency Caminando Fronteras.
Migrants have reported being sold “on a slave market”, according to the IOM. Amnesty International has complained of migrants being tortured and jailed while the UNHCR has published reports by migrants of “appalling” conditions at Libya’s migrant detention centres.
As a result some migrants prefer to make their way to Morocco or Algeria and from there cross the Mediterranean to Spain.
