Atlantic Migrant Route Surges Amid Pandemic, Spanish Arrivals Drop

In its annual report, the public prosecutor’s office explains that the Atlantic route was widely used by migrants during the health crisis. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior consulted by 20minutos, the number of people arriving in Spain and the Balearic Islands decreased by 24% in 2020 (16,610 compared to 21,863 in 2019).

This "very dangerous" crossing that lasts 10 hours is carried out on board boats with an average capacity of 80 people, explains the public prosecutor’s office in its report. Migrants pay between 400 and 1,800 euros for the journey. Moroccan migrants, on the other hand, arrive in smaller boats, which can hold 20 people. Thus, the public prosecutor’s office has observed the growth of "taxi pateras". Rather than abandoning the boats on their arrival in Spain, some criminal organizations return to the African coasts to make new trips.

It is mafias that operate "with cruelty and in disregard of human dignity," notes the public prosecutor’s office. "Children, women and men, crammed like cattle in extremely precarious boats on often very dangerous crossings, are transferred to the Spanish peninsula or islands at the risk of their lives. These crossings often end in scenes of horror, with drowning deaths or children dying of thirst," the public prosecutor’s office points out in its report, noting that other mafias specialize in the trafficking of minors.

To find evidence to indict and convict the main members of these groups run from Morocco, Algeria and Somalia, the public prosecutor’s office insists on the need to establish "closer police cooperation" with these countries, allowing the exchange of information. In this context, the Spanish Ministry of the Interior has donated several computer equipment worth 100,000 euros to Mauritania, a key country on the Atlantic migration route. Several countries such as Gambia, Ghana or Senegal have been beneficiaries since 2006 of these funds, whose budget was 1.5 million euros in 2020 and has doubled this year to reach 3 million euros.