Rabat- The coast guards of Morocco’s Royal Navy engaged in operations in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic rescued a total of 344 irregular migrants, a military source said today.
State media said that the rescue operation took place in the last four days between the period of July 10-14.
Most of the migrants are irregular migration refugees, including women and children.
The migrants aboard makeshift boats were having difficulty.
Coast guards provided the migrants with the necessary medical care aboard ships of the Royal Navy, before being transported to the closest ports of Morocco.
The guards then handed over the migrants to the Royal Gendarmerie unit for usual investigation procedures.
Last week, a navy ship carried out a similar operation in the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
During the operation, the naval unit assisted 244 irregular migrations crossing the North Atlantic ocean and the Mediterranean sea.
The migrants were traveling in several small boats and kayaks bound for Spain. The majority of the migrants, including women and children, were from sub-Saharan Africa.
Today’s rescue operation is part of efforts by the country to combat irregular migration and human trafficking.
There is a regular collaboration among all services to combat human traffickings, such as the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN), Royal Gendarmerie, and the Royal Navy.
In the past four years, Morocco’s security services dismantled over 5,000 trafficking networks and rescued over 80,500 migrants at sea.
Since 2017, Morocco has also prevented more than 14,000 unauthorized migration attempts, according to official data from the Moroccan government.
