• Patera. 14 people arrested after arriving in Formentera

The islands Ibiza and Formentera are living an unusual summer, in which the luxury yachts that swarm through its waters, have coincided with the largest wave of boats in its history.

Since the night of last August and, until yesterday, the state security forces have detected the arrival of five boats from Algeria, with at least 63 migrants, ten of them minors.

Some were arrested as soon as their boat reached the coast, two from Ibiza and three from Formentera ; and others when they tried to embark on ferries to cross from the island of Formentera to that of Ibiza , or in the Ibizan port looking for a ferry to the Peninsula.

A sixth vessel would also have been intercepted on Saturday night, but much further north, in the waters of Mallorca, with at least 16 migrants on board.

The Civil Guard maintains a special device because it believes that in the coming days, thanks to the good conditions of the sea, and the south wind, new vessels could arrive in the southern Balearic Islands.

From the insular direction of the State Administration they confirm that the islands of Ibiza and Formentera would not be the final destination of their trip, but the coast of Levante, from where to continue their trip to France. The first patera arrived on Sunday August 4 at night at Migjorn Beach, south of the island of Formentera , and some of its crew confirmed to the Civil Guard that their destination was Alicante, but they were dragged by the current.

Last December, in less than 24 hours, five boats arrived in Ibiza with half a hundred migrants from Algeria. Their crew also assured then that they were going to the Valencian coast, but they ended up on the island because of the fog.

All boats, both the latter and December, have the same characteristics: about four and a half meters in length, a single engine of about 60 horsepower, and capacity for a maximum of 14 crew.

The origin is usually the ports of Dellys, east of Algiers, or Sidi Frej, to the west, the closest to the islands, just 250 kilometers away; and where according to the researchers, these days have reported the theft of vessels that could be being used by these migrants.

The fate of the 63 detainees is still to be resolved. The Father Morey Children's Center, with capacity for twenty young people, will take care of ten of them, something he could not do in December, when he was at the limit of his capacity, and forced some minors to enter centers in Mallorca .

The rest will be transferred, after passing through the courts of Ibiza, to Foreigners Internment Centers (CIE) in the Peninsula. Some are already in Barcelona. In case there are not enough places, they will be given a provisional identity document and will be released on the island, as was the case with 18 of the 50 that arrived last December, and that after receiving some help from Cáritas and Red Cross, they ended up sleeping in the streets of Ibiza.

The circumstance is that, while the islands of Ibiza and Formentera lived this situation, the Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini proposed to take the immigrants who transport the Open Arms to the islands of Ibiza and Formentera. "So at least they take advantage and have fun," he said at a rally in Puglia.

His comments did not go unnoticed by the authorities of Ibiza and Formentera. The president of the Consell de Ibiza, Vicent Marí, of the Popular Party, also took advantage of Twitter to personally answer Salvini: «Hello @matteosalvinimi, in #Ibiza we do not share your populist policies and much less inappropriate comments and 'funny' about such a problem serious as is immigration in the Mediterranean ».

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