On new year’s eve, Moroccan army units apprehended 1,110 would-be migrants in the north of the kingdom, who were preparing to head for the Spanish-occupied enclaves of Sebta (Ceuta) and Melilla on route to Europe.
In the town of Nador, Royal Armed Forces (FAR) units intercepted 175 would-be illegal migrants from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen, according to a press release from the FAR General Staff. The nationalities of the other 935 were not specified.
Located on the northern coast of Morocco, the occupied enclaves of Melilla and Sebta are the European Union’s only land borders on the African continent and are regularly the locus of illegal border crossing attempts.
The Canary Islands are the other Atlantic Ocean entryway to Europe, particularly from Morocco’s coast.
The Spanish archipelago is seeing its largest immigrant surge since 2006. According to figures from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, 32,436 migrants had landed in the Canary Islands as of November 15, 2023, representing a 118% increase over the same period the previous year, reported Le Monde.