EU plans €210 million in aid to Mauritania to curb migrants’ flows

The European Union is planning to offer 210 million euros to help Mauritania curb illegal migration to the Canary Islands, which reported a record number of arrivals last year.

The batch includes €60 million to be allocated to migration management, the Financial Times reported.

The rest will be invested in security, economic development, and humanitarian aid in Mauritania, which emerged as the main departure point for West African migrants bound for the Canary Islands.

In the first two months of 2024, almost 12,000 people arrived on the Canary Islands by boat, according to the Spanish interior ministry, compared to fewer than 2,000 in the same period last year.

EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson, Spanish interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Belgium’s asylum state secretary Nicole De Moor will travel to Nouakchott to sign the migration cooperation deal, the Financia Times reported.

Spanish officials say that 8 out of ten migrant boats depart from Mauritania. Last year, the Canary Islands accounted for most arrivals in Spain with near 40,000, compared with 56,852 migrants that entered the country by land or sea in 2023.

In contrast, thanks to increased monitoring by Moroccan patrols, the number of arrivals into Spanish occupied enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla dropped by 62% to six attempts involving 1400 migrants in 2023.