While the European Union attempts to buttress its frontiers against illegal immigration, Spain is discovering that even the most sophisticated police technology is unable to stem the tide at its southern border, a gateway for thousands of Moroccans and sub-Saharans seeking to enter Europe every year.
The country’s experience indicates that while police crackdowns may reduce immigration in heavily controlled areas, illegals still find other ways in. Police repression meanwhile can increase the cost in human lives.
Modern frontier surveillance technology, constant patrolling and increased cooperation with Morocco have only had a limited impact on the influx of desperate people willing to risk their lives for a better future in Europe.
For several years, Spain has been using an electronic surveillance system known as Sive, which includes watchtowers and mobile units equipped with radars and infra-red thermal cameras.
The system, in use in the Strait of Gibraltar area, detects boats carrying illegals almost as soon as they take off from Morocco.
Fewer such vessels now cross the 14km of water at the narrowest point of the strait, because Moroccan gangs know that boat captains risk facing the headlights of Spanish police vehicles as soon as they land at night.
The total number of people detained after arriving by boat from Africa went down by 17% to 11 473 by the end of September, according to figures quoted by the daily El Pais.
People-smugglers however are experts at finding new routes, and have begun making longer sea crossings to places further east on the southern coast as well as the Canary Islands, where immigration has ballooned.
Police, hospitals, immigrant detention centres and the administration are overwhelmed on Fuerteventura Island, which received nearly 10 000 illegals in 2003.
Dozens of immigrants also attempt to enter the tiny Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast every night, building ladders from tree branches in order to climb 3,5m high- tech surrounding walls.
Ceuta and Melilla borders are also patrolled by police equipped with sensors that detect the warmth of human bodies.
But migrants who have waited for months on the Moroccan side of the border, eating from garbage dumps and living in caves, are prepared to brave anything to get to Europe.
Clashes between immigrants and police are almost daily occurrences on the Ceuta border. Reception centres in Melilla are so saturated that hundreds are living in shacks made of cardboard and plastic, waiting for an opportunity to cross over to the mainland.
Spain intends to invest 130-million euros ($160-million) in extending the Sive system to the entire southern coast and to Ceuta. It also plans to make the walls surrounding Ceuta and Melilla higher. But will that help?
As sea crossings have become longer and riskier, immigrant-smugglers transport more people at a time, using larger boats and overloading them even more than before.
Because the risk of getting caught is greater, people-smuggling rings no longer use Moroccan boat captains but increasingly leave the vessels in the hands of immigrants, who do not have the expertise to navigate safely. Boats or rubber dinghies frequently capsize.
Official statistics put the number of drowned immigrants at about 400 since 2001, but nobody knows how many human remains really lie in the bottom of the Mediterranean.
The EU is considering setting up immigrant centres in north Africa, but Spain and France have expressed concern that they might not comply with international human rights standards.
An agreement with Morocco allows Spain to send Moroccan illegals immediately back home, but the number of sub-Saharans has simultaneously increased.
They are more difficult to repatriate due to lack of agreements with their home countries and because it can be tricky to detect their nationalities.
Boats coming from Africa even bring more than 100 Asians annually. Coming from countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, they have often travelled about 7 000km to reach Morocco in order to travel to Spain. – Sapa-DPA