Casablanca – Morocco’s Royal Navy coast guards operating in the Mediterranean Sea rescued 105 would-be-irregular migrants, predominantly from Sub-Saharan Africa, between June 17 and June 20.
According to military officials, 20 women and 11 children were stranded in improvised boats, kayaks, and jet skis.
The rescued received the necessary first aid on board vessels of the Royal Navy before being transported to the nearest Moroccan ports and handed over to the Royal Gendarmerie for the usual procedures, said the officials.
In recent years, Morocco has increased its efforts to combat irregular migration. Last month, the North African country hosted a high-level conference of the Moroccan-Spanish permanent mixed migration group in Rabat to adopt a strategy to address the migration crisis in the Mediterranean.
As part of Morocco’s ongoing efforts to curb irregular migration attempts, Moroccan security officials seized a 42-year-old Nigerian man on Sunday evening for his involvement with networks of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
The suspect, who was the subject of an Interpol red notice issued at the request of Spain, is also linked to cyber fraud. He was embedding money using bank data and forging travel documents.
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Last month, Morocco’s judicial police arrested 7 suspects — including six Moroccan nationals and a Mauritanian national living in Morocco — for their involvement with an irregular migration network.
Such numbers point to a worrying trend of organized crime networks seeking to take advantage of what appears to be a large market of irregular migration between Morocco and Europe.
Faced with such an alarming trend, Morocco has pledged to be a global pioneer in battling illicit migration as it seeks to better protect its borders with Spain.
Last year, Moroccan police dismantled 150 criminal networks involved in the organization of irregular migration, arresting 415 suspects and 12,231 would-be migrants.
