Baby dies during the crossing of 283 migrants from Africa to the Canary Islands

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A two-month-old baby died on Thursday (2) during the crossing of nearly 300 migrants from Africa to the Spanish territory of the Canary Islands, according to the emergency service in the European country.

On a social network, the organization informed that 283 people were in five inflatable boats and were destined for the island of Fuerteventura, the closest to Morocco. Almost all were of sub-Saharan origin, with the exception of 11 people from Bangladesh, according to the Spanish newspaper Ultima Hora.

Members of the rescue group told the AFP news agency that 208 men, 68 women and 7 minors were on the vessel, including the baby who did not survive a cardiac arrest. The Spanish newspaper reported that his mother thought the child was asleep.

Since the beginning of the year, 36,379 undocumented migrants have arrived on the Spanish coast, 511 more than in the same period in 2020, according to the most recent figures from the Ministry of the Interior of the European country.

In May, the crisis worsened when more than 10,000 people tried to enter Ceuta, a Spanish enclave that neighbors Morocco. Travelers arrived swimming, aboard floats or inflatable boats, and even on foot, when the tide allowed. Others tried to cross the land border, protected by a double fence.

The trigger was the relaxation of border surveillance by Morocco, in a context of tension with Spain, due to the presence in the Iberian country of the leader of the Western Sahara independence movement.

The Moroccan government reacted with indignation to the news that the head of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, had been interned since mid-April in a Spanish hospital to be treated for Covid-19.

At the time, the African country claimed that the official had traveled with a false passport and asked for a transparent investigation into his arrival in Spain, justified by Madrid on humanitarian grounds. The Algeria-backed Polisario Front has been fighting for decades for the independence of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony controlled mostly by Morocco, which wants to keep the region under its command.

Amidst the migratory flow, the Spanish Ministry of Interior announced that 7,500 people were returned to Morocco, without knowing how many were minors. For this reason, NGOs have warned that unaccompanied minors cannot be returned without a detailed examination of their situation.

Spain is facing the reflex of the tightening of inspections in the Mediterranean Sea, which has increased, as of 2019, arrivals in the Canary Islands, the scene of another migration crisis in 2006.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2021 is being one of the deadliest years on the routes to the European country, with at least 936 deaths or disappearances of people trying to reach the archipelago since the beginning of the year. That’s because, to reach the Canary Islands, boats that are often small and full of people who don’t always know how to swim face strong currents.

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