The EU's border agency Frontex is planning new operations in both Senegal and Mauritania. According to an NGO, Statewatch, Frontex will be going to the two African countries to try and block "irregular migration."
An average of about five migrants per day lost their lives attempting to cross the dangerous Atlantic Ocean to Spain between January and July 2022, the organization Caminando Fronteras has said.
Around 25 people are believed to have died during an attempt to reach the Canary Islands by boat. Survivors said the bodies of the dead were thrown overboard.
Up to 47 people are feared dead after their boat’s engine failed en route from Western Sahara to the Canary Islands. The missing migrants include three children.
A young girl has died during a rescue operation to save migrants trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands in a small boat. The boat, carrying 36 migrants, drifted for more than two weeks before it was found by a merchant tanker.
The authorities of Trinidad and Tobago suspect that a boat carrying at least 14 corpses found in late May near the country's coasts had left from Mauritania with a group of migrants heading for the Canary Islands but was swept by strong currents to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Europe is increasing pressure on African countries to take back migrants in exchange for development aid. But the EU should instead be focusing on creating safe routes to seek protection, analysts have warned.
On the Canary Islands, the new wave of migrant arrivals is becoming a real challenge for the archipelago's long-standing culture of hospitality. The islands have been hit hard by the economic crisis that followed the COVID-19 pandemic, and is now facing the biggest migrant influx since 2006.
Protestors on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria have rallied in support of better living conditions for the thousands of migrants who have reached the Canary Islands from Africa in recent weeks and months. The Spanish archipelago saw almost 1,300 migrants arrive from Africa on 42 wooden boats during the weekend alone.
The appeal of a woman from Mauritania against her denied asylum request in Germany should not have been rejected, Germany's highest court said on Wednesday. The woman claimed to be born into a rigid caste system.
A boat carrying around 40 migrants and refugees sunk off the coast, killing almost everyone on board. A UNHCR spokesman said the shipwreck was the fault of 'immoral and unscrupulous smugglers' arranging such journeys.
On Monday, a Frontex operated repatriation flight took off from Spain’s Canary Islands for Mauritania. 51 African migrants were on board. This is the third such flight this year, says the Spanish Ombudsman. The repatriations are a result of a 2003 agreement signed between Spain and Mauritania.