Illegal Immigrants Embarrass Ministries With European Countries

The year 2017 is the worst in terms of the growing phenomenon of illegal immigration or what has become popularly known as “Harraga”, according to governmental and non-governmental reports that are prepared by European countries that have become the first destination of illegal immigrants such as Italy, Spain and Greece.

Figures for the number of Algerians who are killed at sea put several ministries at embarrassment both internally and externally.

Non-governmental organization “Spanish Refugee Assistance Commission” condemned the wave of migrants across the Mediterranean to Spain, after remarking that  the number of migrants, who reached its coasts are Algerian and Moroccan, has tripled in dangerous journeys that have killed more than 200 people. 

“The outcome is dramatic at the end of this year,” it said.

In this regard, Carlos Arce of the Association of Human Rights in Andalusia told AFP that, as in recent years, a large wave of Algerian immigrants was recorded. 

The Spanish lawyer, speaking on the basis of the reasons behind pushing them to leave their country and head towards Spain, is “the economic situation that has deteriorated in the last three years in Algeria”, which was affected by the decline of oil prices and revenues from the foreign sector.

Last November, Spain noticed a heated debate when some 500 migrants, mostly Algerians, were placed in a jail in the town of Archidona in Andalusia.

“In the past two weeks, hundreds of people were expelled to Algeria, including a large number of minors,” said Alejandro Cortina, director of the Malacca Refugee Association.

“We can not accept that these people remain free under the pretext of their arrival in boats and that we can save them,” the Spanish Interior Minister said.

“The deprivation of liberty should be limited to those who commit misdemeanors, and this does not apply to migrants”, Jose Villahouz, lawyer of the Green Island Refugee Association, said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a report last month that these migrants “are using all means to reach Spain (by sea) from jet ski, jet plates, rubber boats and wooden boats, sometimes transporting more than 60 people.”

The latest figures that are published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) indicate that the number of people who died at sea, dropped from 4967 in 2016 to 3116 this year, but the number of people who died while trying killed to reach Spain rose to more than 223 illegal immigrants.

From January to December 21, 2017, over 21,468 people reached Spanish waters or coasts risking their lives in fragile boats after paying smugglers, almost three times more than the 6,046 figure that was recorded last year.

According to observers, these frightening figures about the growing phenomenon of illegal immigration, put the government in front of its obligations at the internal and external levels to curb illegal immigration, especially as the death toll of death boats continues, even if the executive services tried to absolve itself that “these young people who leave their country and offer their lives to the danger, are not searching for work, but a way of life that bring them illusions and push them to some behaviors”, as the Prime Minister, Ahmed Ouyahia, said.