Rabat – A Moroccan soldier drowned while trying to intercept a group of irregular sub-Saharan migrants on their way to Spain from the coast of Jubaila, outside the city of Tangier, on Wednesday.
According to local news outlet Tanja24.com, the 22-year-old soldier, whose body has not yet been found, was a member of the coastal observation unit of Jubaila. He and his colleagues were trying to stop irregular immigrants who were on a boat heading secretly to Spain.
The Moroccan navy men are still looking for the soldier’s body on the coast of Jubaila and the surrounding areas.
Spanish daily newspaper ABC reported that immigrant arrivals to Spain in April 2019 were down 52% from April 2018, based on data from the International Organization for Migration.
The notable decrease in irregular migrants to Spain, according to an ABC source at the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, is because of both Spanish-Moroccan information sharing and Morocco’s dismantling of irregular migration networks.
On Thursday, May 2, police in Nador, a coastal city on the Mediterranean in northeast Morocco, arrested five people suspected of facilitating irregular migration.
