The number of refugees fleeing Sahel insecurity for Mauritania has hit “a critical threshold,” ramping up illegal migration to Spain and beyond in Europe, Mauritania’s defence minister said Monday.
According to a recent report by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, 275,000 refugees and asylum seekers are currently in Mauritania, population 4.9 million.
They are chiefly concentrated in the southeast on the border with Mali, including 112,000 registered in the crowded Mbera refugee camp alone, UNHCR says.
Most have fled insecurity and hunger in Mali, said Defence Minister Hanena Ould Sidi.
“The flow of refugees into Mauritanian territory has reached a critical threshold,” the minister said, blaming the security situation in the Sahel.
Located in northwest Africa, Mauritania has recently seen greater stability than nearby Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, where jihadists and other armed groups are thriving.
At talks with his Spanish counterpart Margarita Robles in Nouakchott, the minister warned that the “deteriorating security situation in the region is leading to an intensification of the flow of irregular migrants crossing Mauritania into Spain”.
Mauritania is on a maritime route used by tens of thousands of Africans trying to reach Europe via the Atlantic.
Spain’s Canary Islands are the first point of entry to Europe on the perilous route.
To October 15, 32,878 illegal migrants had arrived in the Canary Islands by sea, compared to 23,537 during the same period last year, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry.
The Spanish government is working with West African countries to stem the migrant flow and Nouakchott is out to strengthen cooperation programmes with Spain and Europe generally on the issue.
In August, Mauritania and Spain pledged to cooperate to tackle people smuggling and to promote legal migration, during a visit to the Mauritanian capital by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
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