According to a military source, the Moroccan navy has rescued about 900 illegal migrants in the last few days, the majority of them are from Sub-Saharan Africa, including 400 in territorial waters, while efforts to cross to Spain have increased.
One corpse was dragged out of the ocean during the rescue operations, according to a Moroccan source on Tuesday.
“Between July 10 and July 17, Royal Navy forces rescued 845 would-be illegal migrants of various nationalities, the bulk of them were Sub-Saharan Africans. Over 400 individuals were rescued in waterways under national authority in the Kingdom’s south “According to the source.
According to the same source, the would-be migrants took to the sea in makeshift boats, kayaks, pirogues, jet skis, and even swam.
Those rescued were assisted on board naval vessels before being brought ashore for identification.
Since the tightening of controls in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands’ migratory route, the gateway to Europe in the Atlantic Ocean, has seen a marked increase in activity from the coasts of northwest Africa.
Other crossing attempts, just as perilous, are being made from the coasts of Morocco and the Western Sahara.
NGOs regularly report fatal shipwrecks — whose unofficial death toll they put at dozens if not hundreds — in Moroccan, Spanish, or international waters.
In a tweet on Tuesday, the Alarmphone aid network said that 24 people had died when their boat, carrying 61 people, capsized off Western Sahara two days ago.
This information has not been confirmed on the Moroccan side.
The Moroccan authorities claim to have foiled 26,000 attempts at illegal emigration during the first five months of 2023. In 2022, some 71,000 attempts were aborted, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
