Moroccan Migration to Europe Persists Despite Tight Border Security

Rabat – In a bid to curb the flow of irregular migrants from Morocco to Europe, the European Union recently allocated €500 million in financing to its North African partner. Still, Morocco remains on the list of “most frequently reported countries of origin among all registered arrivals to Europe,” according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

In its latest quarterly regional report issued on September 6, IOM reported that Europe has registered a total of 38,008 migrants and refugees in the second quarter of 2022. The arrivals came through the eastern (Greece, Cyprus, and Bulgaria), central (Italy and Malta), and western Mediterranean routes as well as the western African Atlantic routes that lead to Spain’s Canary Islands.

This means that the concentration of migration flows has shifted this year from Western Mediterranean and Western African Atlantic routes to Central Mediterranean, marking a drop in western arrivals from 45% in 2021 to 14% this year. Meanwhile, Italy and Malta witnessed higher flows in the second quarter estimated at 55% of total arrivals to the continent, up from 38% in 2021, the report detailed.

As the migratory pathways leading to Spain have seen a slowdown in the past quarter, Moroccans represented 29% of arrivals by sea, ahead of Algerians (19%), Guineans, Senegalese, and Sudanese, according to Frontex data. While not explicitly mentioned in the IOM report, the slowdown could be attributed to the recent diplomatic rapprochement between Rabat and Madrid and the consolidation of bilateral cooperation on migration management.

Spain had registered 5,364 arrivals in the second quarter of 2022, representing only one-third of the statistics from Q2 2021. IOM indicated that 54% of Spanish arrivals in the second quarter were registered by sea through the Canary Islands while 37% of them were through the western Mediterranean routes to Spain and the Balearic Islands.

The Spanish enclaves Ceuta and Melilla, which recently witnessed a much-reported migration tragedy, experienced only 9% of the general traffic.

Despite the fall in the number of arrivals to Spain, 136 irregular migrants died in the past quarter in the Atlantic Ocean while trying to reach the Canary Islands, the report detailed.

According to the Spanish human rights NGO Caminando Fronteras, at least 978 migrants died or went missing while attempting to reach Spain in the first six months of this year.

Besides following the traditional Spanish route to Europe, Moroccans also opted in the past quarter for Greece, Cyprus, and Bulgaria. Notably, Moroccans represented 9% and 31% of total registered new migrants in Bulgaria (2,970) and Kosovo (244) in the second quarter of 2022, according to IOM.