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ARCHIVED - 200 more Algerian migrants reached the coast of Murcia this weekend
Migrants pay between 1,000 and 4,000 euros for their perilous crossings of the Mediterranean
Over the first weekend of October another wave of unauthorized African migrants headed towards the coastline of Murcia and by Sunday afternoon a total of 200 on board 18 boats had been intercepted and taken into custody.
It is not uncommon for the numbers of would-be immigrants into the EU arriving in the Costa Cálida to rise sharply in the autumn, when the conditions at sea are generally calm and there are far fewer leisure craft in the Mediterranean, and 2019 is proving to be no exception as the authorities find their resources stretched to the limit again. Newspaper reports claim that around 50 Algerians had to spend their first night in Spain on chairs in the police station of Cartagena awaiting transfer to a migrant detention centre, with the facilities in the Region of Murcia already full to overflowing, while other reports suggest that at least 20 migrants were allowed free – most of them are thought to have been picked up and taken to France by the drivers supplied by the same people trafficking mafias who organized their Mediterranean crossing.
In general it is thought that each migrant pays these mafias between 1,000 and 4,000 euros for transport across the Mediterranean, with different fees relating to different levels of logistical support. Those with less purchasing power are transported on fishing boats to around 70 miles from the coast of Spain and then transferred to tiny boats, some of them with only a tiny motor, to attempt to complete the journey, while the more expensive passage entails the second part of the voyage being completed in motor boats.
For many years the Spanish authorities denied the use of the fishing vessels as “mother ships”, but the fact that the tiny boats reaching the shore are so fragile, have so little fuel on board and are usually very close to each other seems to tie in with the theory perfectly. Investigators believe that the small boats supplied to the migrants as they begin the final leg of their crossing are made somewhere between Oran and Mostaganem on the coast of Algeria, and many of those which have been intercepted on the coast of Murcia are of the same rudimentary design and even the same colours.
Unfortunately, but inevitably, there are casualties during the crossings, and according to regional newspaper La Verdad the six people who were rescued from a capsized boat 20 miles off the coast of Cartagena may face charges of murder by negligence in relation to the death of an 11-year-old who was accompanying them. The young boy, named Ayman, did not know how to swim and was not given a life jacket when he fell into the water: a relative who was among those rescued explains that his intention was to take the child to France or Germany.
Meanwhile, the number of migrants intercepted on or close to the coast of Murcia in the last couple of weeks has risen to 450, well over half of the 819 recorded during the first nine months of the year.
Image: archive
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