The Spanish Maritime Safety and Rescue Society on Wednesday rescued nearly 600 people from 15 boats and a jet ski in the waters between Morocco and Spain, a route increasingly used by refugees trying to reach Europe.
A coast guard spokesman said 599 people had been rescued since the early hours of Wednesday morning, a large number for just one day in Spain.
At least 35 minors, including a baby, were among the refugees crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and the Alboran Sea as they fled unrest or poverty in their countries, he said.
Photo: EPA
“The high number of boats coming to the Spanish coast this summer is unusual,” a spokeswoman for Spain’s coast guard agencies said earlier, adding that there were three times as many as in the same period last year.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 8,385 refugees had arrived in Spain this year as of Wednesday last week.
At least 121 refugees drowned while attempting the crossing, compared with 128 deaths for the whole of last year, organization data showed.
The number still pales in comparison with the number of people hitting the shores of Italy, which saw close to 97,300 people arrive this year as of Sunday, with 2,242 deaths.
In June, about 5,000 people were rescued in just one day in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya, the Italian coast guard said.
However, Spain could overtake Greece this year in the number of refugees arriving by sea, the organization said earlier this month.
That does not take into account those crossing by land into Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish territories in northern Morocco. Both cities are the EU’s only land borders with Africa.
As a result, they are entry points for African refugees who regularly try to climb high double-border fences or force their way through them with wire cutters, or hide in vehicles crossing the frontier.
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