A little over a year ago, in the middle of summer, Spain was the only Mediterranean country to have succeeded in containing irregular immigration. A stage so ephemeral that it was broken a few months later with a spectacular rebound on the Canary Islands route that continues to this day. This scenario has been reversed: now, Spain, along with Greece, is the only Mediterranean country where irregular entries are increasing, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). As of August 15, the Ministry of the Interior recorded the arrival, by land and sea, of 31,155 people, 66% more than in the same period of 2023, although the figures reveal a slowdown compared to the beginning of this year. Morocco is increasingly controlling exits, while the challenge is now further south, in Mauritania. And the situation is not going to improve due to the hornet's nest in the Sahel, with a handful of countries in serious difficulty. “The pressure is there and will continue to increase as flows of refugees from across the Sahel and the sub-Saharan region continue to head towards the African coasts with the intention of emigrating,” Interior Ministry sources say.
In this year of the European Pact on Migration, and in which we see difficulties for the autonomies to show solidarity in welcoming minors, immigration – with a particular emphasis on irregular immigration – has more and more weight in politics. It was one of the key issues of the last elections, such as the French or European ones. And it is even gaining importance in Spanish politics, with an inflection in the PP's discourse and the usual arguments from Vox, Alvise Pérez or Aliança Catalana on climbing.
The strong rebound in entries is explained by the Canary Islands route, the route by which 70% of them risk their lives. of migrants who enter Spain irregularly and whose number (22,304 entries) has more than doubled compared to last year. But the increase figures – although they may seem contradictory – camouflage a slowdown compared to the beginning of this year. A fact that illustrates this: arrivals to the islands went from 7,000 in January and more than 4,000 in February to just over 2,000 in July. . And another: the 66% increase in total arrivals to Spain is high, but it is far from the 524% with which January closed. Since then, this percentage has decreased. “The increase recorded at the beginning of 2024 on the islands still has a statistical impact on the figures, despite the fact that landings have more or less stabilized at last year's level in the same period”, illustrates Flavio Di Giacomo, IOM spokesperson. .
The key will be in the last four months of the year, when calm reigns in the Atlantic, navigability improves and it is likely that the number of canoes launched will multiply. The volume is unpredictable: the only certainty is that it will undoubtedly mean a worsening of the situation in which nearly 6,000 minors living in the Canary Islands live for which there is still no solution. However, this does not mean that the forecasts issued in recent weeks by some politicians as leaders and who assure that more than 70,000 people could enter the archipelago are coming true. “These data have no basis, it is not possible to calculate them,” specify various sources from the Ministry of the Interior.
What emerges from the confidential reports of the security forces is the critical situation that Mauritania is going through, where President Sanchez will return at the end of the month to strengthen collaboration with the African country. The tour will also include Gambia and Senegal, the starting point of migratory routes that are still active but more controlled than at the end of last year. Arrivals from the Mauritanian coast of more than 13,000 people represented a growth of 6,000% at the end of the first half of the year, according to sources dedicated to border control. This very strong increase also hides a certain drop in landings in recent months, after having skyrocketed in January and February. Arrivals, although constant, decreased after the visit to Nouakchott in February of Sánchez and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in which they promised financial aid of 500 million euros.
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In any case, the situation in the country, is experiencing its own refugee crisisThis is worrying because there is no sign of improvement. “The pressure from candidates for emigration of Malian origin in Mauritania is enormous and the situation in Mali is only getting worse. On the other hand, the success of those who reach the Canary Islands [a pesar de los cientos de naufragios] This has attracted more people of other nationalities to try to get there. We are talking about groups of candidates for emigration of between 100,000 and 500,000 people,” explains a source dedicated to border control. The country is overwhelmed and needs more help. “Mauritania has an interest in containing immigration. Not only because of the money that comes from the EU, but also because for them it is a question of security, but the situation is increasingly complicated,” adds this source.
The profile of those leaving Mauritania poses new challenges. There is one detail that has caught the attention of the security forces, and that is that the Mauritanians themselves are emigrating. “These arrivals denote a rise in discontent among the local population, because until now there were not a significant number of Mauritanians who wanted to emigrate by cayuco,” explains this source. But the most striking fact in the current situation is that, for the first time, Malians are the most numerous nationality among those arriving irregularly in Spain. Among the more than 9,000 Malians registered, according to police data, there are even those who landed in the Balearic Islands by the Algerian route.
The arrival of Malians draws a new scenario that requires other approaches from the Spanish authorities. Spain, unlike Italy and Greece, has been able to present all these years its irregular immigration as being eminently economic and pay less attention to their international asylum commitments. Although Malian nationals also migrate for economic reasons, they constitute one of the most obvious possible refugee profiles because they come from a country where Conflicts and terrorism are spreading to more and more regions since 2012. The fact that the main people disembarked have a refugee profile should oblige the authorities to ensure that they have access to apply for international protection, and that their application is registered as provided for in the 1951 Geneva Convention and Community legislation, including what has been agreed in the European Pact on Migration and Asylum which provides that asylum can be requested in the port itself.
Moroccan control, Algerian emergence
Even though the outlook on the Atlantic side is uncertain, Morocco maintains tight control over its northern and southern coasts as well as those of Western Sahara. This deployment has led to a decrease of about 30% of entries from these areas at the end of the first half of the year, according to police sources. But beyond the figures, which the Interior Ministry has not yet made public in detail, some episodes have been recorded that reveal that pressure from Rabat is moving emigrants to the south of the region. One example is that Syrian and Pakistani refugees who are said to have left Mauritania and Senegal have appeared in the Canary Islands, a profile that rarely uses this route and that traditionally emigrates from the Moroccan or Algerian coasts.
The appearance of Syrians, Pakistanis or Bangladeshis in the canoes reveals another trend that worries the security forces. “Every time an Asian appears on a route that is not usual, it is a sign that the human trafficking networks are becoming more professional and connecting with others,” explains a source in the security forces.
Ruben Andersson, a migration expert and professor of anthropology at the University of Oxford, also links part of the rise of the Canary Islands route to the heavy hand in northern Morocco. “Repression in one part of the border leads to displacement to another place. In the short term, governments rely on this control to be able to hide the problem, but in the medium and long term, repression does not solve it,” the expert argues.
The open front in Morocco is Ceuta, where land entries (which include those arriving by swimming) have increased by 173% and now total 1,605 people. The case of Drug boats loaded with immigrantsa phenomenon “which is consolidating and is here to stay”, police sources deplore. “The emergence of drug boats [con cerca de 200 embarcaciones contabilizadas] It was very striking because it meant the opening of new routes, even if the numbers were not that big. The problem here is that with few people, who are charged 10,000 euros for the trip, they earn a lot of money and there is an impressive black number of boats that are not detected,” adds this source.
For their part, arrivals from Algeria increased by around 15% in the first half of the year, according to police sources. a rebound particularly visible in the Balearic Islands. Algiers, opposite Rabat, has suspended the return of its nationals since March 2022, when a bilateral crisis began due to Spain's support for the Moroccan solution for the future of Western Sahara.
Andersson misses a “more strategic approach” that encourages legal and safe ways to emigrate and takes into account the demographic and labor supply imbalances between Europe and Africa. He also calls for calm: “The number of people entering the Canary Islands and crossing European borders is a drop in the ocean compared to the number of people emigrating legally.” Specifically, the 31,155 irregular entries recorded so far this year represent only 5.6 percent of the foreigners settled in Spain between April 2023 and April 2024 and 0.06% of the total population.