Families at a popular Spanish beach were shocked yesterday when an inflatable raft carrying dozens of migrants from Northern Africa suddenly washed ashore. As can be seen in the following onlooker"s video, the migrants fled the boat before it reached dry land and ran inland in an effort to evade authorities.
According to the Daily Mail, the migrants arrived in Cadiz in Southern Spain and managed to disperse before being captured by police.
Footage shows the migrants leaping out of a black inflatable dinghy and dashing across the sand on beaches at Cadiz in southern Spain, after crossing the Strait of Gibraltar.
Carlos Sanz, who shot the video while on vacation in Cadiz, said the group quickly vanished and police only arrived some time later.
Local newspaper Diario De Cadiz reported that many of those on board quickly changed their clothing to evade the police, who carried out searches to apprehend the suspected illegal migrants. Many of the group were collected in vehicles after landing, according to the paper which could mean that those driving the vehicles could potentially face human trafficking charges if caught.
The incident comes as the International Organization for Migration warned on Thursday that Spain could overtake Greece this year in the number of migrants arriving by sea, using boats and even jet-skis.
According to the IOM"s latest figures, until August 6, close to 8,200 migrants had arrived in Spain so far this year.
That is more than triple the number who reached Spain at the same time last year, according to Joel Millman, a senior IOM spokesman, and already more than the total arrivals in 2016.
While the figure pales in comparison with arrivals in Italy - where more than 96,400 have landed so far this year - Spain is catching up with Greece where 11,713 have arrived by sea in the same timeframe.
"It"s possible that Spain will outperform Greece this year," Millman told AFP.
"If so, that"s a big change."
The southern shores of Spain are roughly 20 miles from the north African coast.
More than a year after the BREXIT referendum shocked the world, the various EU member nations are seemingly no closer to a consensus on how to deal with Europe"s migrant influx. The lack of a coordinated plan and disproportionate distribution of migrants across the continent has Italy threatening to close their ports to privately-funded aid boats until other nations "step up." Per Yahoo News:
With arrivals in Italy up nearly 19 percent over the same period last year, Rome has threatened to close its ports to privately-funded aid boats or insist that funding be cut to EU countries which fail to help.
"There are NGO ships, Sophia and Frontex boats, Italian coast guard vessels" saving migrants i the Mediterranean, Minniti said, referring to the aid boats as well as vessels deployed under EU border security missions.
"They are sailing under the flags of various European countries. If the only ports where refugees are taken to are Italian, something is not working. This is the heart of the question," he said.
"I am a europhile and I would be proud if even one vessel, instead of arriving in Italy, went to another European port. It would not resolve Italy"s problem, but it would be an extraordinary signal" of support, he said.
Of course, in the face of the ever-growing crisis, the interior ministers of France, Germany and Italy got together to do what politicians do best: talk. And while we"re sure that European citizens are very happy that "the talks went off very well," somehow we suspect the continued "all talk, no action" approach to the crisis is not entirely satisfactory for a continent that has been devastated by terrorist attacks of late.
The French and German interior ministers met with their Italian counterpart Marco Minniti in Paris on Sunday to discuss a "coordinated response" to Italy"s migrant crisis, hours after Minniti had called on other European countries to open their ports to rescue ships.
The working dinner at the French interior ministry -- also attended by EU Commissioner for Refugees Dimitris Avramopoulos -- was aimed at finding "a coordinated and concerted response to the migrant flux in the central Mediterranean (route) and see how to better help the Italians," a source close the talks said.
The four-way talks between Minniti, Thomas de Maiziere of Germany, Gerard Collomb of France and Avramopoulos will also prepare them for EU talks in Tallinn this week.
"The talks went off very well," a member of the Italian delegation told AFP after the Paris meeting, with the "Italian proposals being discussed". The source offered no other details.
"We are under enormous pressure," Minniti had said earlier Sunday in an interview with Il Messaggero.
Meanwhile, over 2,000 migrants have died this year alone in their attempts to cross the Mediterranean.
More than 83,000 people rescued while attempting the perilous crossing from Libya have been brought to Italy so far this year, according to the UN, while more than 2,160 have died trying, the International Organization for Migration says.
Italy"s Red Cross has warned the situation in the country"s overcrowded reception centres is becoming critical.
"What is happening in front of our eyes in Italy is an unfolding tragedy," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Saturday.
Minniti said Rome would be pushing for a way to shift the asylum application process from Italy to crisis-hit Libya, and safely bring to Europe those who win the right to protection.
"We have to distinguish before they set off (across the Mediterranean) between those who have a right to humanitarian protection and those who don"t," he said.
Perhaps, at some point, politicians will learn how to act rather than just talk...but we won"t hold our breath.
The German police are learning from their past mistakes: one year after last year"s notorious New Year"s Eve mass attacks by migrants on German women in the city of Cologne, security forces in the city said they screened hundreds of North Africans at the main railway station on the last day of 2016 to prevent a repeat of last year"s events.
“Hundreds of Nafris [North Africans] screened at main railway station,” Cologne police tweeted.
As Reuters earlier reported, the German police announced that they planned to step up security across the country, which included installing new video surveillance cameras around Cologne’s station square. Surprisingly, Germany"s stepped up security did not translate into a better preparedness in Turkey, where overnight at least 39 people were killed when a gunman opened fire inside a popular crowded Nightclub in Istanbul.
Demonstrating Germany"s preparedness for any eventuality, around 1,800 officers were deployed on New Year’s Eve this year, compared to only 140 in 2015.
The result was a relatively uneventful new year celebration: two sexual assaults were reportedly committed in Cologne this New Year’s Eve, with 29 people taken into custody, Kolner Stadt Anzeiger media outlet reported, citing a media statement from police which also noted that the personal information of about 1,700 people had been collected. Compare this to last year, when groups of men sexually assaulted and robbed as many as 600 women in the German city. The attackers were said to be mostly of North African and Arab appearance.
Police spokesman Dirk Weber told Deutsche Welle that additional measures had been taken this year, including placing “at least 20 concrete blocks in key points such as bridges and gathering spots” and using heavy vehicles “to block some junctions, mainly to prevent similar attacks to the one that took place in Berlin earlier this month.”
Germany remains on a heightened state of alert after a truck plowed into a Christmas market in central Berlin two weeks ago, killing 12 people and injuring 56. The key suspect, Tunisian national Anis Amri, had recorded a video pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group, which took responsibility for the attack.
Separately, confirming that Europe"s migrant problems are not going anywhere in 2017, Reuters reported that around 1,100 sub-Saharan African migrants tried to cross into Spain"s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco on Sunday by storming a border fence, though most were eventually turned back, the Spanish government said.
Dozens of migrants made it to the top of the 6 meter barbed wire fence in the early hours of Sunday before being lifted down by cranes, footage from local TV station Faro TV showed. Only two people were allowed into Ceuta to be taken to hospital while the rest were returned to Morocco, the Spanish government said in a statement.
Five Spanish police and 50 from Morocco were injured, the government added, after migrants used rocks and metal bars to try and break through gates to access the fence and clashed with authorities.
In early December more than 400 sub-Saharan African migrants managed to force their way over the Ceuta border fence.
Spain"s two enclaves in Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla, are often used as entry points into Europe for African migrants, who either climb over their border fences or try to swim along the coast.
Spain has drawn criticism from human rights groups for allowing some migrants to be immediately turned back to Morocco in such incidents. They argue that skipping the lengthier deportation procedures deprives people of the opportunity to claim asylum.
However, Libya has become a more common departure point for African migrants, most of whom come from sub-Saharan countries and attempt the crossing to Italy by boat. 2016 was the deadliest year ever for migrants in the Mediterranean, with almost 5,000 deaths, according to the International Organization for Migration.
While there is little indication the refugee tide into Europe is subsiding, there is a glimmer of hope that with the proxy war in Syria hopefully on its last legs, that the biggest source of refugees out of the Middle East will have less of an impetus to make the long, dangerous trek to Europe in the coming year.
