140 migrants have landed on the Algarve coast in six years
At least 140 migrants have landed on the Algarve coast over the past six years, according to a tally compiled by Lusa based on news published since 2019.
On Friday, a small boat with 38 people on board, including seven minors, docked at Boca do Rio beach, in the municipality of Vila do Bispo, in Vila do Bispo, Faro.
The first case of a boat carrying immigrants on the Portuguese coast occurred almost two decades ago, in December 2007: a group of 19 migrants allegedly from Morocco disembarked in the Ria Formosa, near Olhão.
The years 2019 and 2020 were those in which the most migrants arrived by boat in the Algarve.
In total, 97 migrants docked on six boats, all of them undocumented and allegedly coming from the same point, the city of El Jadida — formerly the Portuguese Mazagão — located on the Atlantic coast of the African country, 700 kilometers from the Algarve.
Some of these migrants attempted to apply for asylum, but were denied, and the majority were ordered to be expelled from the country, awaiting the implementation of the court decision in prisons and other locations, where they are held by the authorities.
On September 15, 2020, for example, 29 migrants disembarked on Deserta Island, off Faro, a group that, for the first time, included women, one of whom was pregnant, and a child. Two weeks later, 17 of them escaped from the barracks in Tavira where they were being guarded by the Immigration and Borders Service (SEF).
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On December 8, 2019, eight people, all men, were detected on Monte Gordo beach and less than a month later, on January 29, 2020, 11 more were arrested, who arrived by boat in the Olhão area.
In June and July of that year, three new groups were identified, the first of seven men, in Olhão, on June 6, the second, of 22 people, on June 15, at Praia do Vale do Lobo, Loulé, and a last of 21 men, on Ilha do Farol, Olhão.
The following year, in March 2021, the case of three men identified in Vila Real de Santo António was recorded and only in December was a new case recorded, barely anything different.
Off the coast of Tavira, on December 11, a boat carrying 37 migrants was identified and rescued.
Most migrants who arrived in the Algarve over the past six years have been identified and ordered expelled, but there have also been cases of escape, such as the group that managed to escape from the Tavira barracks.
In 2020, the then Minister of Internal Administration, Eduardo Cabrita, stated that it was premature to talk about a new migration route to Portugal, compared to the “tens of thousands of arrivals in Spain”, particularly in the south of the country, with boats crossing from Morocco.
observador
