The Government has put four of its 22 ministers to work to try to stop the massive arrival of immigrants that have been reaching the Spanish coasts since the autumn began. This Friday, specifically, they have carried out an initiative from Spain and from the countries that experience the most departures of people. Thus, while the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, is visiting Senegal and Mauritania; those of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres; and Elma Saiz, from Inclusion, have traveled to the Canary Islands to try to find solutions to a problem for the Spanish State.
According to the biweekly balance of the Ministry of the Interior on irregular immigration as of November 30, arrivals in the Canary Islands had increased by 134% compared to 2022, with 35,400 people arriving in the Canary Islands and the immigrant reception centers having collapsed. In fact, the Ministry of Defense is setting up barracks to accommodate these people in Madrid.
In Dakar, Albares met with his Senegalese counterpart, Ismail Madior Fall, to strengthen the bilateral relationship and try to achieve control over the departure of irregular immigrants. In Senegal the political situation is very compromised after the Government arrested Ousmane Sonko, opposition leader, at the beginning of summer, and dissolved his party last August. All of this sparked protests that were strongly repressed, resulting in numerous deaths. The lack of hope and stability in these countries always motivates the departure of people and, as this newspaper published, the Government had reports that this political instability would cause a new exodus, which occurred.
Albares, in fact, has included in his agenda a visit to the Civil Guard detachment in the port of Dakar. These Benemérita agents do a fundamental job by collaborating with their Senegalese counterparts in the surveillance and patrolling of the coasts to prevent mafias from trafficking in human beings. According to Interior sources, this contingent is currently made up of a total of 38 troops (33 civil guards and 5 national police), equipped with four boats, a helicopter and 13 all-terrain vehicles, to carry out joint patrol missions (land, sea and air ). In addition to this permanent device, since last October 17, a Civil Guard CN-235 aircraft has been deployed in Dakar to patrol the coasts of Senegal and Mauritania.
The operational collaboration of the Spanish security forces and the actions of the local authorities have made it possible to intercept during 2023, with data up to October 29, a total of 7,132 people who were traveling the Atlantic route towards the Canary Islands, which means that They have prevented at origin around 49% of irregular arrivals to the archipelago from the coasts of Senegal. Despite everything, immigration continues to increase in 2023, which is why Albares assured after his meeting with Fall: “We have renewed our commitment to the urgent need to fight against these mafias.” Furthermore, he has insisted that “both countries agree to promote orderly and regular migration, and we are taking steps in this direction. We want regular and orderly migration to become another instrument of the bilateral relationship.”
While Albares was working on the ground in Senegal and Mauritania, Fernando Grande-Marlaska was with the Ministers of Territorial Policy and Immigration in the Canary Islands. There, they accompanied the EU Home Affairs Commissioner, Ylva Johansson, to learn about the migration situation in the archipelago. Elma Saiz, in statements to Spanish Television, has acknowledged that “it is no coincidence” that three ministries go to the archipelago. “We have to make the most of our resources to respond to reality and have that level of vision and response as there has been in other situations of migration crisis,” she concluded.
Marlaska recalled in the presence of Johansson that “the border limits of Spain are also the borders of Europe, and migration must be a responsibility shared by the 27 Member States and not only by the countries of first entry.”