Up to 20Â 000 Africans are trying to reach Europe from camps in Western Sahara and Mauritania, the governor of Spain’s Canary Islands said on Wednesday.
Citing a Spanish police report, Jose Segura told Agence France-Presse (AFP): ”After an evaluation, there are maybe 15Â 000 or 20Â 000; it’s very difficult to put a precise figure on it.”
A report in Spain’s El Pais daily newspaper said that at least 45 people-smuggling gangs were charging an average of $1Â 200 per person for passage to the Canary Islands, off the north-west African coast.
The would-be migrants are gathered in 15 encampments along the Western Saharan coast and the Mauritanian coast further south, according to Spanish police.
The two main gathering points are in Mauritania, chiefly Nouadhibou, but also the inland Zouerat.
Tightened police controls in the Straits of Gibraltar, northern Morocco and the northern Canary Islands have forced people traffickers into finding new, longer and more dangerous routes into Europe.
Boats are leaving from further south, heading for the Canary Islands and sometimes travelling 1Â 000km through much more perilous seas.
Fifty would-be migrants from Africa have drowned at sea in recent days during desperate bids to reach Spanish shores, part of a new wave of clandestine workers that has left an estimated 1Â 200 people dead since November.
Segura told Spanish radio station Cadena Ser on Tuesday that most migrants heading for the islands now leave from Mauritania.
The favoured destinations of migrant-smuggling operators are currently the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, and even more so Fuerteventura, despite its being monitored by a state-of-the-art security system of cameras and radar.
Clandestine migrants know that if taken into custody, it is highly unlikely that they will face immediate repatriation, experts say.
Between 700 and 800 people attempt the crossing from the north-west African coast every day, according to Ahmedou Ould Haye, co-ordinator of Mauritania’s Red Crescent, who estimates that up to 40% of the boats never make it. — Sapa-AFP