Over the weekend, Morocco's Royal Armed Forces (FAR) intercepted several hundred migrants attempting to cross the Atlantic to the Spanish Canary Islands archipelago.
A statement from the Moroccan Royal Armed Forces this weekend confirmed that FAR units responsible for coastal surveillance intercepted 79 migrants on Sunday (February 4).
The migrants are reportedly from sub-Saharan African countries and were attempting to set off from the Moroccan town of Boujdour on the Atlantic coast, reported Morocco World News (MWN).
The migrants were hoping to reach the Spanish Canary Islands, an archipelago administered by Spain located off the coast of West Africa in the Atlantic Ocean. According to another English-language Moroccan news portal, Yabiladi, all those intercepted were men.
According to the Moroccan Press Agency MAP and the French language news portal le.360.ma, all the migrants were on board a single pirogue.
A picture posted on Facebook by FAR Maroc showed the battered light blue pirogue with tens of migrants still on board.
Several other boats were intercepted over the weekend
On Saturday (February 3), the French news portal Hespress reported that a FAR unit had also picked up 31 sub-Saharan migrants about five kilometers off the Moroccan town of Tarfaya and another boat about 64 kilometers south of Boujdour.
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Also on Saturday, another boat was located about 10 kilometers south of Dakhla. Around 100 sub-Saharans were aboard, including 90 from Mali, seven from Mauritania, three from Senegal, two from Ivory Coast and two from Guinea, reported Hespress.
Migrants reaching the Canary Islands rose significantly in January
In January, Spanish data indicates that the numbers reaching the Canary Islands rose a reported 1000% compared to the same numbers of arrivals in January 2023. In fact, according to the news agency Reuters, some 7,270 migrants landed on the Canary Islands in January 2024. In January 2023, that figure was 566.
According to the FAR statement, reported MWN, the intercepted migrants were handed over to the Royal Gendarmerie police force for administrative procedures.
In recent years, Morocco has stepped up its efforts to stop migrants attempting to cross both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic towards Spanish territories. In January, a Moroccan Navy frigate picked up 44 sub-Saharan African migrants in the Atlantic, including two minors, hoping to make it to Spain.
In total, according to Morocco’s border control authorities, 1,000 migrants were stopped trying to cross into Spain.
Morocco intercepted around 87,000 migrants in 2023
There are border surveillance units stationed in Morocco in the towns of Nador, M’diq and Fnideq, according to MWN. A FAR unit in Nador said they had stopped 175 individuals from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen from attempting to migrate, reported MWN.
In addition, the news portal stated, 935 individuals were detained "while attempting to cross illegally from Morocco to Spain."
In 2023, reported Turkey's Anadolu Agency (AA) in early January, the Moroccan armed forces claimed have carried out around 87,000 interceptions through the course of last year. The majority of those intercepted came from sub-Saharan African countries.
This included those trying to enter the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, as well as those attempting the Mediterranean or Atlantic routes.