AT SEA/MAURITANIA: Spain and Mauritania join forces to stem migrant flow after growing number of migrant deaths

Record ID: 348686

  • Title: AT SEA/MAURITANIA: Spain and Mauritania join forces to stem migrant flow after growing number of migrant deaths
  • Date: 18th March 2006
  • Summary: (W3) NOUADHIBOU, MAURITANIA (MARCH 12, 2006) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS ON BOAT (4 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 2nd April 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVADNNWAOXE2EWE3EK69U2620TLZ
  • Story Text: Spain and Mauritania agreed on Friday (March 17) to operate joint coastal patrols and target illegal people-trafficking networks to deter thousands of African migrants from trying to reach Europe by sea, after a Spanish ship recovered the bodies of 18 migrants from the sea off Mauritania on Wednesday.
    Mauritania has called for international help to stem the exodus from its northern coast, where scores of young men from around West Africa set out every night in rickety fishing boats bound for Sapin's canary Islands almost 500 miles (800 km) away.
    Many end up drowning, and the Spanish Red Cross estimated this month that more than 1,000 African migrants had died since the start of this year trying to break into "Fortress Europe" by ever longer sea routes -- 10 times the official death toll off the Canaries since December.
    A Spanish government delegation met with Mauritanian military chiefs late on Thursday to discuss how to deal with the crisis.
    Under the agreement, Spain pledged to help Mauritania build and manage reception centres to receive detained migrants.
    The two sides also agreed to launch joint coastal patrols and Spain would give Mauritania four patrol vessels and help train their crews.
    Spanish experts would also train Mauritanian security forces to track down migrant-smuggling networks and would give advice on how to detect false identity and travel documents.
    Yahya Ould Cheikh Mohamed Vall, governor of Mauritania's northern port of Nouadhibou, which has become a hub for migrants in recent months, told the Spanish delegation he needed immediate aid of 60 million ouguiya (230,000 US dollars) a month.
    The Spanish side also pledged to ask the European Union to give emergency aid to Mauritania.
    Vall said the money was needed to tighten border controls, build a reception centre for detainees and fight the network of touts and middlemen who organise the migrants' voyages.
    He said around 1,000 sub-Saharan Africans were arriving in Nouadhibou every month to prepare for the crossing to Europe. More than 900 have reached the Canaries since Saturday alone.
    Every day scores more migrants, mostly young men from Mali and Senegal, are detained by Mauritanian police, usually after turning back at sea due to getting lost or running out of food.
    The going rate for a place on a wooden or fibre-glass open "pirogue" is 150,000 ouguiya -- money which many have been given by family and friends in their village or neighbourhood.
    "There is no work there in Senegal, life is tough for people, that's why we take the risk. We did not get the money from work (to make the trip) it's our mothers, our big brothers, uncles or colleagues, and good friends. Everyone contributes and gives us the money to go with the help of God. If you make it you make, it if you don't you don't," said one young man on the floor of a Nouadhibou police station.
    Mauritania has become the new route for those trying to smuggle themselves out of Africa since Morocco tightened its northern borders under pressure from the European Union late last year, pushing the problem further south.
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