Spain: Immigrants detained
01 November 1997
On 23 November the Guardia Civil detained 94 North Africans who were attempting to land on the coast near Algeciras. Some 70 of them were on a fishing boat and 24 in a rubber dinghy, the two most common types of vessel used in the crossing from Morocco to Spanish territory. While recent tragedies have highlighted the use of dinghies, quite a number of fishermen have turned to transporting migrants to supplement their incomes. The 70 detained on this occasion had each paid Ptas 500,000 (about £2,000). Their arrests brought to 3,100 the total of undocumented immigrants detained this year in Andalucia alone, to which must be added over 2,000 detentions in Ceuta and Melilla.
The latest recorded incident in which immigrants died was when a dinghy foundered was on 22 October, seven were known to have died and another 10 were listed as missing.