Improved naval patrols have more than
halved the flow of illegal immigrants sailing to
Spain
from
Africa in the first quarter of 2007
compared to the previous year, Spanish and European officials said on Thursday.
The news emerged after Wednesday saw European
Union (EU) lawmakers backing a plan to set up a rapidly-deployable force of border
guards to help states such as
Spain,
Italy and
Malta deal with sudden influxes of
illegal migrants.
The three countries have seen the arrival
of thousands of illegal immigrants in the recent years.
On Tuesday
Malta
witnessed the arrival of the first group of illegal
immigrants for this year, as 28 men reached the
shore of
Marsaxlokk. Many
such arrivals are expected as summer looms, granting illegal immigrants ideal
weather conditions to travel by sea.
In March,
European Justice Commissioner
Franco Frattini stated that the problem of illegal immigration among southern
European countries such as
Malta,
is set to escalate.
However, according to Reuters Africa, Spanish officials said patrols by the EU’s
new Frontex border agency of the waters off Spain and west Africa, together
with repatriation agreements Madrid has extracted from African governments,
have dramatically cut the flow.
Reuters Africa reported that the number of boat-borne migrants arriving at
Canary
Island
beaches dropped by 60% in the first three months of the year to 1,525 from
3,914 in the same period in 2006, a government representative in the Canaries
said on Thursday.
Read more about this issue on MaltaMedia's special feature: Lanċa Ġejja u Oħra Sejra: Malta
and
its migrations.
