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Tue May 22nd, 2007
Spain repatriations a message to traffickers
Spain's move to repatriate 1000 Africans in May is a clear warning to people traffickers that the country will not tolerate illegal immigration, Interior Minister Alfredo Rubalcaba said.
Spanish authorities have already sent back 750 Africans on charter flights to their home countries, Rubalcaba said at a political rally on Sunday, a week before regional elections in which immigration is high on the political agenda.
"I think that by the end of the week, we'll have repatriated virtually all of them," Rubalcaba said in Vigo, western Spain. He said people had been returned to Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Mauretania and Morocco.
"This is a clear message to the mafias: if you come to Spain illegally, the most likely result is that you're going to be sent back to the country you left in the first place."
Spain's population has increased by a tenth over the past decade largely due to immigration, but the issue soared up the list of voter concerns last year when 30,000 Africans arrived in Spain's Canary Islands on boats.
Far fewer have risked the dangerous journey in open wooden boats so far this year, due to poor weather and European Union maritime patrols.
But the Spanish government received a jolt when 650 exhausted Africans sailed into the Canary Islands over three days in mid-May, just two weeks before the regional elections. The government says Africans desperate for work in Europe are being brought in by organised people traffickers.
In 2005 Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero gave about 600 000 illegal immigrants the right to stay in Spain in an amnesty, but at a campaign meeting on the weekend he promised "an iron fist with a silk glove" for new arrivals who slip past controls.
Polls show immigration is one of the biggest voter concerns ahead of May 27 regional elections. None of Spain's main parties proposes reducing legal immigration, which has mainly come from Latin America, Morocco, and, increasingly, Eastern Europe.
Sat May 12th, 2007
Desperate immigrants
intercepted en route
More than 300 Africans were caught trying to sail to
Spain's Canary Islands in just over 24 hours, the biggest wave
so far this year, officials said Saturday.
The latest overcrowded boat arrived shortly after midnight
Friday on the island of Tenerife carrying 101 people, said
Beatriz Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Canary Islands
emergency rescue services.
Altogether 329 Africans were either intercepted at sea or
caught on land in Tenerife or another island, Gran Canaria,
since Thursday night, she said.
Destitute Africans desperate to find a better life regularly
risk their lives to try to reach Europe by sailing in open
fishing boats toward the islands, located off the northwest
tip of Africa.
Last year more than 30,000 immigrants were intercepted
while sailing to the Canaries in crowded boats.
Normally, migrants who manage to reach the islands are kept in
a holding camp for 40 days and eventually set free, but
without residency papers or work permits, if the Spanish
authorities cannot identify them.
Mauritania ignores call
to help sinking boat
April 25th, 2007
A Spanish hospital ship has rescued about 90 African
would-be immigrants, two of whom died and many of whom were
sick, after their boat sprang several leaks off Mauritania,
Spanish government sources said on Wednesday.
The migrants said they had thrown 10 other bodies off board
during their journey.
The boat carrying 90 Africans was first spotted by a Spanish
fishing vessel when it was about to sink off Mauritania on
Monday.
The passengers included four women, several children and
several seriously ill people. A body was also on board.
The fishing boat MS Segundo San Rafael took the migrants on
board, where another one of them died.
Spain asked the Mauritanian authorities for help, but the
north-west African country refused to comply, arguing that the
immigrant boat was not in its water zone, according to the
daily El Pais.
The hospital ship MS Esperanza del Mar, which was travelling
in the area to assist Spanish fishermen, finally took the
migrants on board.
At least 25 of them were being treated for symptoms including
hypothermia, dehydration and anxiety. The hospital ship and
the fishing boat were positioned at about 36 kilometres off
the Mauritanian port of Nouadhibou.
The Spanish government was in contact with Mauritania and
Senegal to clarify the boat's departure point, which was
thought to be in Senegal.
Madrid wants the immigrants to be taken back to where they
left from, a Foreign Ministry source said.
The incident came after a Spanish rescue vessel towed a ship
carrying 369 Asians and Africans to near Nouadhibou in
February. Mauritania kept the ship moored off its coast for
more than a week before granting it permission to land.
Last summer, Malta barred entry to a Spanish fishing vessel
which had rescued 51 Africans. Malta kept the boat waiting for
more than a week until Spain finally divided the migrants
between several European countries.
Spain's Canary Islands received more than 30 000 African
undocumented immigrants in 2006.
esinislam.com + Agencies
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