Spain coastguard ‘overwhelmed’ by wave of migrants

SPAIN’S coastguard union yesterday warned the service was completely “overwhelmed” by a dramatic rise in the number of migrant crossings, as more than 700 people were rescued from rafts in the Strait of Gibraltar in just one morning.

The union for Spain’s Maritime Rescue agency issued an urgent call for resources to help it cope with the “massive arrival of immigrants” on the country’s shores. Crew reinforcements were desperately needed to guarantee they could continue saving lives, it said in a statement. The “extraordinary upturn” in arrivals had meant “an absolute overflow of work” for maritime rescue centres, many of which already had “insufficient” crew levels, it said.

The warning came as the Spanish coastguard pulled 774 people from 52 rafts in the Strait of Gibraltar yesterday morning, bringing arrivals to more than 2,000 this week alone. A further 125 people were rescued elsewhere in Spain, including the sea of Alborán, Murcia and Majorca. The country is now the largest gateway for migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, with 20,992 people landing on its shores so far this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration. Arrivals to Italy now trail Spain by almost 3,000 – a gap that just a week ago was 200.

Yesterday the government announced an extra €30million (£27million) for agencies dealing with the migratory challenge. Magdalena Valerio, minister for work, migration and social security, called for help from the EU and said that Madrid was worried by Thursday’s events in Ceuta, one of Spain’s two outposts in Morocco, where more than 600 migrants forced their way through the border fence.

Two Civil Guard unions also called for urgent assistance in the face of what they said were increasingly well planned incursions into the enclaves, Europe’s only land borders with Africa. Thursday’s forced entry was said by security forces to be of “unprecedented violence”. The Red Cross later said more than 130 people had required medical treatment.

Authorities and NGOS in Andalusia have been sounding the alarm over the surge in arrivals, noting that reception centres are saturated and migrants being forced to sleep in converted sports halls, on boats and in one case on a police station patio.

The Spanish have blamed the increase on the crackdown on the Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy, where the new populist government has barred rescue ships from docking.