EU sending aid to help Spain stop migrants

The European Union will deploy planes, patrol boats and rapid-reaction aid teams from its member states to deal with a new flood of African illegal migrants trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands, EU officials said Tuesday.

The EU justice and home affairs commissioner, Franco Frattini, said the EU’s external border security agency, Frontex, would send two emergency coordination teams to the Canary Islands, which have faced a flood of illegal migrants from western Africa.

Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega of Spain said her government and the regional authorities on the Canary Islands could no longer cope and needed emergency help as quickly as possible.

Talks in Brussels were organized after another influx of immigrants - more than 1,500 in the past week, including small children - made their way to the Canary Islands, overwhelming the Spanish authorities.

Frattini added that Frontex would also coordinate in the coming weeks surveillance planes and boats, manned by soldiers and police officers drawn from eight EU member states to prevent the migrants from making their way to Europe.

Frattini said that the EU-mandated mission would patrol the coast off western Africa down to Gambia and Senegal, from where most of the migrants are sailing.

Fernández de la Vega said that Madrid hoped to set up so-called reception centers with other EU nations in the key transit countries of Mauritania and Senegal as an additional measure to stem the flow of those trying to escape poverty.

Frattini has called for EU governments to back plans for an emergency EU fund for quick responses to mass flows of migrants, as well as setting up a permanent plan for European patrols in the Mediterranean to intercept illegal migrants. He said €2.7 million, or $3.4 million, would be available this year for such actions.

EU officials have identified Senegal and Mali as top countries of origin, while top transit countries by which they are getting to Europe remain Mauritania and Morocco.

Read full article: International Herald Tribune, 23 May 2006