https://arab.news/zkb3y
RABAT: Morocco stopped 78,685 migrants from illegally crossing into EU territory in 2024, up 4.6 percent from a year earlier, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday.
The figures highlight “growing migratory pressure in an unstable regional environment,” the ministry said in response to questions.
Among the migrants, 58 percent were from West Africa, 12 percent from North Africa where Morocco is located, and 9 percent from East and Central Africa, it said.
Years of armed conflict across Africa’s Sahel region, unemployment, and the impact of climate change on farming communities are among the reasons driving migrants toward Europe.
Morocco and neighboring EU member Spain have strengthened cooperation against undocumented migration since they patched a separate diplomatic feud in 2022.
The North African country has for long been a major launch pad for African migrants aiming to reach Europe through the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, or by jumping the fence surrounding the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco.
Last year, there were 14 group attempts to cross into Ceuta and Melilla, compared with six in 2023, the ministry said.
Moroccan authorities rescued 18,645 would-be migrants from unseaworthy boats in 2024, up 10.8 percent from 2023, it said.
Last month as many as 50 migrants may have drowned in the latest deadly wreck involving people trying to make the Atlantic crossing from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands, a migrant rights group said.