Spain in battle to contain influx of migrants

CRISTIANOS – Humanitarian workers on Spain’s Canary Islands are battling to deal with an unprecedented wave of African immigrants, just six months on from a similar crisis in Spain’s north African enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta.

Thousands of destitute Africans have massed in the west African state of Mauritania in recent weeks. On Thursday a Spanish hospital ship picked up the bodies of 25 migrants who drowned making a perilous attempt to reach the islands in unseaworthy vessels.Those who have managed to reach Spanish soil have overwhelmed local authorities trying to house the refugees in crowded makeshift reception centres.Trying to answer a Mauritanian plea for help, Spanish officials visited Mauritania on Thursday, offering four patrol boats replete with Spanish crews to bolster coastal monitoring.Spanish First Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said Friday that she would visit Tenerife on Saturday to assess the situation for herself and determine how to “increase reception capacity.”De la Vega said Spain was also seeking an accord with Mauritania which would permit the repatriation of clandestine migrants while ensuring human rights were respected.The migration route to Mauritania involves a highly dangerous trip of 800 kilometres, but has become the route of choice since Morocco reinforced border controls after the storming of perimeter fences at Ceuta and Melilla by thousands of mainly sub-Saharan Africans last autumn.Those incidents, still under investigation, left at least 11 migrants dead at the hands of border guards while Moroccan security forces sent other migrants into the desert without food or water, causing an international outcry, before eventually repatriating them.- Nampa-AFPOn Thursday a Spanish hospital ship picked up the bodies of 25 migrants who drowned making a perilous attempt to reach the islands in unseaworthy vessels.Those who have managed to reach Spanish soil have overwhelmed local authorities trying to house the refugees in crowded makeshift reception centres.Trying to answer a Mauritanian plea for help, Spanish officials visited Mauritania on Thursday, offering four patrol boats replete with Spanish crews to bolster coastal monitoring.Spanish First Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said Friday that she would visit Tenerife on Saturday to assess the situation for herself and determine how to “increase reception capacity.”De la Vega said Spain was also seeking an accord with Mauritania which would permit the repatriation of clandestine migrants while ensuring human rights were respected.The migration route to Mauritania involves a highly dangerous trip of 800 kilometres, but has become the route of choice since Morocco reinforced border controls after the storming of perimeter fences at Ceuta and Melilla by thousands of mainly sub-Saharan Africans last autumn.Those incidents, still under investigation, left at least 11 migrants dead at the hands of border guards while Moroccan security forces sent other migrants into the desert without food or water, causing an international outcry, before eventually repatriating them.- Nampa-AFP