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ARCHIVED - Dozens of irregular migrants reach the Murcian coast in small boats
Boats have been arriving all day, and have been detected in Cartagena, La Azohía and as far along the coast as Águilas
The problem of irregular migrants arriving on the Spanish coastline in small boats has continued this week, with reports of pateras containing Covid-positive migrants reaching the coasts as far apart as the Canary Islands and Murcia.
On Monday 116 migrants were rescued from small boats off the Andalucian coast in the Mar de Alborán; on Thursday, 56 people were rescued off the coastline of Almería in the waters of Cabo de Gata, the Canary Islands reported that 100 of its current 165 active cases of Covid related to migrants who had arrived on the islands in small pateras, and this morning 13 people reached Tenerife in the Canary Islands, 25 were rescued in Cabo de Gata in Almería and at least 74 reached the Murcian coastline in several small boats.
At the moment the exact number of migrants who have reached Murcia is unclear, but there have been multiple boats today.
The first boat was near to Portmán to the south-east of Monte de las Cenizas and contained 12 men and one woman.
The second boat was intercepted in Cabo de Palos, and also contained 16 Algerian males.
Other boats arrived in the Cabo Tiñoso area early in the morning around 08:00 and their occupants had disembarked before police arrived at the scene. 22 men and one woman were detained in the area around La Azohía and Campillo de Adentro, although it is not clear if all those who had reached the coast were detained; it is quite common for the so-called “patera-taxi” drivers to deposit migrants on the shore and then head back out to sea without being detected and it is often the case that those that do reach the shore in boats which are subsequently abandoned, split-up to minimise the chance of being detained by police.
At 08:10 a boat containing 12 males was detected to the south-east of Cabo de Palos.
At 09:10 another boat containing 10 males was intercepted to the south of Cabo Negrete containing 10 males, believed to be Algerians.
It appears there may yet be further boats which have not yet been officially reported as a reader who was out sailing sent in this video footage showing other migrants arriving on the beach in the full sight of bathers and swimmers enjoying the summer sun on Playa Amarilla in Águilas opposite the Isla del Fraile island. (see below)
The migrants are all transferred to the Escombreras Industrial area where a temporary reception centre has been set up manned by the Cruz Roja, where all the new arrivals are given a medical check-over and are tested for Covid.
Once they are on land, they come under the jurisdiction of the Policía Nacional who are working in collaboration with the Cruz Roja to ensure that any migrants testing positive for Covid-19 are quarantined.
At the moment, those in quarantine are being housed in the albergue in the regional park of El Valle close to Murcia City.
The situation regarding the arrival of these irregular migrants which tend to be from Algeria in Murcia due to the distance from the Algerian coast, is currently up in the air due to the continued closure of the migrant transit centres (CIE) which normally process these irregular arrivals and attempt to deport them from Spain back to their country of origin.
The principal reason behind this has been the closure of the Moroccan and Algerian borders due to the Covid crisis.
The first stage of the border re-opening began on 14th July, but aims to permit Moroccan residents to return home to their country from abroad rather than to open borders for tourism; while the borders have been closed it has been impossible for Spain to repatriate migrants with expulsion orders.
The police have no jurisdiction to hold any migrants testing negative for Covid-19 beyond a 72 hour period as technically they have not committed a crime.
On the 7th/8th July a similar wave of boats reached the Murcian Region sparking off a major disagreement between the Murcian Regional Government and the Government Delegate to the Region who represents the national Government of Spain which has the responsibility for migrant expulsions and which would normally take charge of the new arrivals, but due to the lack of the CIE centre had nowhere in which they could be safely housed.
There were several escapes of Covid-positive migrants from hospitals in which positive patients were being treated, including one case in which a migrant climbed out of the hospital window from the fourth floor using his bedsheets as a rope and in another instance a group of migrants broke out of the temporary marquee in which they were waiting for the results of Covid-tests and disappeared off into Cartagena; only six of the 9 were detained.
This latest batch of arrivals is likely to spark off a similar discussion with the regional government concerned about the safety of residents and holidaymakers.
It is very difficult to detect and intercept these vessels, which use outboard motors to approach the coast at speed, and as today shows, the favoured technique is to disperse a number of boats along the coast in a co-ordinated fashion to split coast guard resources and maximise the chances of the boats getting through without being detected.