Canary Islands and Mauritania meet to discuss illegal migration
Canary Islands President has travelled to Mauritania to discuss the problem of illegal migration, reported by Atalayar on February 19th.
On a two-day official visit, Canarian President Fernando Clavijo has discussed the issue of migration as 50 percent of the boats carrying illegal migrants heading for the Canary Islands leave from Mauritania.
The spokesperson for the Canarian Government, Alfonso Cabello said that up to 4,752 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands illegally and so far in February the figure has already reached 2,000.
Cabello that the autonomous community is reviewing their relations with Mauritania, adding that the mission will ‘probably’ be the ‘most important ever’ with the African country and that it will take place 10 years after the last meeting between the two.
The meetings will discuss new forms of collaboration to prevent the migratory routes, labelled the ‘Atlantic route’, but claim the main objective is to avoid the loss of migrants’ lives as they travel the deadliest migrant route in the world, according to figures from 2024. The Atlantic Route was responsible for almost 9,800 deaths in 2023 with Mauritania being the main point of departure.
Since the meeting, President Clavijo has called for a greater role from the European Union to address the migration crisis and the fight against human trafficking mafias in the Sahel region, from which the European peacekeeping mission withdrew in May 2024, according to Atalayar, despite the conflicts in the region being a main driving factor for mass migration.
Clavijo insisted that the only way to deal with the structural challenge of migration is through cooperation with the originary countries, like Mauritania. He said, “they need resources and collaboration to be able to generate opportunities here, because if we insist on building walls and creating barriers we are not understanding anything of what is happening,” suggesting a contrarian view to US President Donald Trump’s method of dealing with migration.
Europe and the EU have yet to respond to the calls from the Canarian President.
Atalayar
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