Moroccan: Evaluating the Rescue’s Actions

The Moroccan authorities are overwhelmed by the hundreds of boats that pass through their waters, seeking to reach Spain. The onslaught is such that in a week, more than 800 migrants who made the crossing have been rescued, in most cases, in these precarious boats.

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According to sources consulted by Prensa Latina, it is believed that this increase in the migratory flow is due to the increase in controls on undocumented immigrants, the decrease in accepted applications, and the increasing difficulty of obtaining refugee status, which has led hundreds of migrants to opt for illegal trips.

The situation has been such that, in addition to the most recent and unusual modalities put into practice, such as jet skis, people who aspired to swim have even been intercepted.

So far this week, 24 migrants have been found dead as a result of the shipwreck of a precarious boat with 61 passengers on board.

The Canary Islands route continues to gain popularity as an arrival route to Spain. The situation that has rebounded in recent weeks has generated protests in the government of the Canary Islands, which accuse the Spanish and Moroccan authorities of not implementing effective coordination when carrying out the rescues.

However, there has been some improvement in the rescues that have been carried out, especially due to the reduction in deaths in relation to those that occurred at other times of higher growth.

It is known that the Spanish authorities defend the quality and high technology of their rescue operations; in this sense, they have criticized and blamed the Moroccan rescuers for the high rates of deaths that have occurred on this route.

Morocco does not have a professional migrant rescue service in place. Its ships and personnel are military, who, with merely empirical training, assume these rescues as service orders. Moroccan rescue mechanisms also imply deportation in most cases, so the same migrants, even in vulnerable conditions or in danger of their lives, refuse to be rescued for fear of being returned to their countries of origin or being retained in conditions that violate their human rights.

These latest events reach the press thanks to the follow-up that is carried out by the alarm phone system. In the report presented in 2022, there was great concern about the management of the Moroccan authorities: "They have repeatedly expressed their unwillingness to carry out a quick and safe rescue, often costing human lives," highlights the report published in September of last year.

Today, the news of the high number of rescues and the relatively low number of deaths suggests that the actions of Alarm Phone could be defining the outcome of the Moroccan coast guard in the current migratory situation.