The Moroccan navy rescued almost 200 sub-Saharan African migrants from fragile vessels off its southern shoreline and Western Sahara this past Tuesday, as reported by the nation’s official media.
Including this recent rescue, Moroccan military sources indicate that over 518 migrants have been returned to Morocco since the start of August. The most recent group of 190 individuals was discovered in the maritime region between Tan-Tan and Dakhla, with 11 of them being women, as per the state’s news agency MAP.
The Canary Islands, under Spain’s jurisdiction, are situated roughly 150 kilometers west of Tan-Tan, a location to the northeast of Dakhla in the contested Western Sahara region. There has been a noticeable increase in migration activity on the Canary route in the past few weeks.
Data reveals that in the initial five months of 2023, Moroccan officials stopped 26,000 undocumented migration attempts. Meanwhile, statistics from Spain’s interior ministry show that more than 7,200 migrants managed to reach the Canary Islands by sea within the first half of the year.
Additionally, in a tragic incident in mid-July, a boat carrying Senegalese migrants capsized off the Moroccan coast, resulting in at least 13 deaths, as confirmed by Senegal’s officials.
On Saturday, the National Institute of Migration in Mexico has announced the rescue of 137 migrants from Egypt and Mauritania who were stranded inside a bus in the state of Veracruz.
Local media reports indicate that early on Thursday morning, officials from the Institute received an anonymous call alerting them to a passenger bus on an old highway. Upon arriving at the scene, they found 137 migrants – 129 from Egypt and 8 from Mauritania. They had been abandoned, as reported by the “Euro Dot US Euro” newspaper in its English edition.
Sources suggest that the migrants were unable to verify their legal residency in Mexican territory, leading to speculations that they might have been attempting to enter the United States illegally.
Among the migrants, unaccompanied minors were discovered. All the adults were transported to a local migration office to handle administrative matters and were provided medical care. The minors, on the other hand, were taken to offices of the “National System for Comprehensive Family Development” (DIF).
