By RFIPosted on 07-12-2019Modified on 07-12-2019 at 02:34

Spain has become in 2019 the main gateway to Europe for African migrants who arrive illegally by boat, according to the IOM, ahead of Italy.

This is one of realities highlighted by the sinking Wednesday off Mauritania and which killed at least 62 people. In the last two years, Libya, assisted by the European Union, has considerably increased its controls, making crossing the Mediterranean to Italy increasingly difficult. Results: more and more candidates leave this route to try their luck via West Africa.

They were about 5000 in 2015 ... against 60 000 in 2018 to reach Europe via what the IOM calls the West African road. But behind this figure are two different realities. There are those who first win Morocco then cross the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain, by far the most numerous.

Then there are those who go up the Atlantic coast of the Gulf of Guinea to the Canary Islands. It was this route that was intended to take the boat that sank Wednesday . Nearly 900 African migrants have arrived this year to the Spanish islands. A figure still low but which has doubled since 2017 for a particularly hazardous road: eleven shipwrecks and 160 deaths have been recorded this year alone.

" It's a lot compared to the number of arrivals and probably underestimated for lack of control at sea " worries IOM spokeswoman Florence Kin in the area.

However, we remain far from the peaks observed on these migration routes in the 2000s. At the time Spain had considerably tightened controls. It was then that the candidates for departure had turned to Libya.

For two years, the phenomenon has reversed again as Libya has emerged as an increasingly inhospitable area for migrants. The proof, for researcher Mathieu Tardis, migration specialist at Ifri, that " the policy of closing borders is not enough " to the extent that those who want to leave always end up doing it, whatever the risks for their lives.

    On the same subject

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    France: more than 500 migrants evacuated north-east of Paris

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