Surge in Jet Ski Migrant Crossings from Morocco to Spain Alarms Authorities

The phenomenon has grown this summer and worries the Civil Guard. Jet skis carrying migrants from the Moroccan coast have flocked to those of Andalusia and Ceuta. As of September 6, 288 people have managed to reach Spain on 147 jet skis, according to data from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior. These figures have doubled compared to last year when 124 migrants arrived by jet ski, and are close to the 142 who arrived in 2020, Publico reports.

Until September 15, migrant arrivals in the peninsula and the Balearic Islands have decreased by 27.8% compared to 2021, when just under 17,400 migrants arrived, far from the nearly 55,000 recorded in 2018. These data highlight the measures taken by Morocco to strengthen security on its northern coast, with the financial support of Spain and the European Union. Since 2019, the Strait of Gibraltar has been subject to increased control on the Moroccan side, which has helped reduce the flow of migrants.

"The human trafficking mafias are reinventing themselves and jet skis are very lucrative and have a high success rate," explains Pedro Carmona, spokesman for the Unified Association of Civil Guards (AUGC) who had alerted in August to the situation and called for more resources from the Ministry of the Interior to deal with it. By jet ski, the crossing takes 15 or 20 minutes, for a cost of around 6,000 euros, according to the AUGC. According to other police sources, this amount can go up to 10,000 euros.

Very fast, jet skis are difficult to stop by patrol boats. "The jet skis generally start in groups, with two to three migrants on board. The radar detects them as a single vessel and they then disperse. It is impossible for a patrol boat to intercept them all at once," Carmona adds. On Wednesday, agents from the Maritime Service of the Civil Guard of Ceuta rescued two Moroccan migrants abandoned at sea by a jet ski. A Moroccan minor was also rescued at sea on Friday after being left adrift by a jet ski that had broken down.