So far, most of the migrants from North Africa came to Mallorca on boats.

On Friday evening a first "flight boat" landed in La Palma.

According to press reports, the Spanish police now call the latest incident at Palma airport “Patera aérea”.

The investigations are still ongoing, but there are increasing indications that a group of Moroccans may have provoked the emergency landing of their Moroccan airliner in order to get to Spain without a visa.

Hans-Christian Rößler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb, based in Madrid.

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On Sunday they were still looking for 12 people.

21 Moroccans and one Palestinian stormed out of the plane of the Air Arabia Maroc airline on Friday, which made an unplanned stopover on the way from Casablanca to Istanbul on Mallorca: the captain had asked for permission to land on Mallorca at around 7 p.m. after a passenger allegedly in had fallen into a diabetic coma.

Accompanied by a passenger, he was taken to a hospital for an examination, where it was found that nothing was wrong with him.

Action may have been planned

The police arrested the Moroccan on suspicion of "aiding and abetting illegal immigration". His companion had previously disappeared - like the 21 men who stormed out of the plane parked on the airfield at the same time. They ran down the slope, climbed the fence and disappeared into the night. The airport was closed until around midnight. 27 approaching aircraft were diverted to Ibiza, Barcelona and Valencia, 20 take-offs were delayed by hours.

According to information from the regional newspaper "Diario de Mallorca", the investigators are now assuming that at least some of the Moroccans planned the action to illegally enter the EU. It is considered unlikely that the apparently faked medical emergency of a passenger resulted in the improvised mass exodus. The diabetic man may have caused the health crisis himself, it is believed. On Saturday, the representative of the Spanish central government, Aina Calvo, said that there was no evidence "to confirm that it was an orchestrated or planned operation," but did not rule out the possibility. None of those arrested have so far asked for political asylum.

According to the Spanish news agency Efe, the police became aware of a Facebook group called "Brooklyn", which is said to include more than 10,000 young Moroccans.

A post was published there in July describing an action that was very similar to the events in Palma and for which “interested parties” were being sought.

Unlike when entering Spain, Moroccans do not need a visa in Turkey, where the plane was going.

“People want to emigrate: we need 40 volunteers,” according to Efe, the page read.

You should book a flight to Turkey, on which one passenger would pretend to be sick and the others could then flee.

"We are not just any group, we are a legend," it said proudly in a post at the weekend.