(AP) The number of migrants and asylum-seekers who reached Europe in 2020 is the lowest it has been in the past decade, according to a report released Friday by the United Nations migration agency. But deaths and disappearances on sea routes remain […]
(AFP) Spanish police said Thursday they had dismantled a ring suspected of financing Al-Qaeda and arrested three men, including the top representative of Spain’s Muslim community. Those detained were suspected of having “exploited an NGO to finance the activities of terrorist fighters,” […]
(AFP) Police briefly detained and questioned the top representative of Spain’s Muslim community as part of an investigation into the funding of jihadist organisations, police and government sources said Wednesday. Mohammed Ayman Adlbi, who heads the Islamic Commission of Spain, was arrested […]
(AFP) She was just two years old and she was from Mali. And her death this weekend after days fighting for her life puts a harrowingly human face on the migrant crisis in the Canary Islands. She was brought to Arguineguin port […]
(AP) The interior ministers of the five Mediterranean countries on the front line of mass migration to Europe want their EU partners to share the burden more equitably. “We can no longer be punished for our geographical position,” Malta’s Byron Camilleri said […]
(AP) The interior ministers of the five Mediterranean countries on the front line of mass migration to Europe are meeting in Greece to discuss the European Union’s policies as the bloc works toward a new migration pact. Ministers from Italy, Spain, Malta, […]
(AP) Scores of migrants have been rescued from several boats near Spain’s Canary Islands, with 14 — many suffering from hypothermia — requiring hospitalization, authorities said Wednesday. A baby girl was in critical condition, while one person was reported to have died […]
(Olive Press) Three prisoners who tried to get fellow inmates in a Murcia jail to join the Daesh/Islamic State terror group have been arrested by the Guardia Civil. The men got to know each other while they were serving sentences at the […]
(Reuters) More than 60 North African migrants are living in tents in the mountains of Spain’s Gran Canaria island with no access to running water after leaving a Red Cross centre which they say crammed dozens of them into squalid conditions. About […]
(Yabiladi) The Spanish government said this week that 62% of the 37 jihadists arrested in 2020 by the security forces were citizens of Moroccan origin. According to Europa Press, the government explained, responding to a question by Vox, that the … list […]
(AP) Dozens of migrants scaled a double fence and entered the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco early Monday, authorities said. Officials said that 59 out of around 150 migrants were able to get through. Two of the migrants and three officers […]
(AP) Something seemed wrong to the guard inspecting sealed bags of toxic ash in the port of Melilla, one of Spain’s two small territories in North Africa. So he pulled a knife, cut the bag open and found a motionless leg, confirming […]
(AFP) Spanish judges on Wednesday began deliberating a verdict in the trial of three men accused of helping the jihadists behind the 2017 attacks in Barcelona and a nearby town that killed 16. The Islamic State (IS) group took responsibility for the […]
(Reuters) Eight members of a gang suspected of trafficking migrants from Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla to the Spanish mainland have been arrested, police said on Saturday. Migrants were charged 2,000 euros ($2,400) each to make the journey across the Mediterranean […]
(Euro Weekly) The tech giant Twitter said that they had briefly suspended the official account of Spain’s right-wing Vox party as one of their tweets had violated their hate speech policy. In order to unlock their account, the company said, all the […]
(Reuters) Spain is launching a new migration policy in the Canary Islands, opening camps for undocumented migrants in a sign that it expects a significant influx of new arrivals, while it largely refuses to transfer them to the mainland. After a huge […]
(Reuters) Dozens of migrants stormed into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla early on Tuesday, scaling the high, razor-wired fence that separates it from Morocco, local authorities said. The migrants, all from sub-Saharan Africa and nine of whom sustained injuries that required […]
(AFP) A court in Spain on Monday remanded in custody three suspected members of Islamic State arrested last week in Barcelona, including an Algerian man who had fought for the Islamist group in Iraq. Spanish authorities began their investigation after becoming aware […]
(AP) Three men died in a boat carrying more than 40 migrants and another died upon reaching shore on Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands on Tuesday, authorities said. They were the first deaths of migrants arriving on the islands in 2021, a […]
(Reuters) The number of undocumented migrants arriving in Spain’s Canary Islands on rickety boats was more than eight times higher in 2020 than the previous year, the Spanish Interior Ministry said on Monday. As north and sub-Saharan Africans grew desperate after losing […]
(AFP) Nearly 2,200 migrants died trying to reach Spain by sea this year, the vast majority of them on their way to the Canary Islands, a migrant rights group said Tuesday. [Migrant] arrivals in the archipelago have increased this year as they […]
(Reuters) Morocco has rebuffed a European Union request to take back third-party nationals who reach Europe from the North African kingdom, its interior ministry said on Tuesday. EU migration commissioner [Ylva] Johansson visited Rabat this month to seek a readmission agreement allowing […]
(AFP) After a three-day boat trip from Western Sahara, Mohceine Ait Lamadane reached the Canaries and from there travelled to Italy, taking advantage of a system swamped by arrivals and slowed by the coronavirus. “I paid 2,000 euros ($2,430) for the crossing,” […]
(AFP) Europe’s latest jihadist attacks may have targeted France and Austria, but Spain, like the rest of the continent, remains within the sights of extremists and the threat level is still “severe,” experts say. The issue has returned to the headlines in […]
(Miami Herald) A Cuban-born man accused of supporting a foreign terrorist group by distributing propaganda videos on social media is being held in a Miami federal lockup, according to court records. Jonathan Guerra Blanco, 23, who lives near Fort Myers, was denied […]
(Middle East Online) Spain’s security forces arrested on Saturday a suspected terrorist of Moroccan nationality in Guadalix de la Sierra, near Madrid, for his alleged participation in the crimes of membership in a terror organisation, indoctrination and self-training. The anti-terror operation was […]
(AP) Emergency services in Spain’s Canary Islands say 68 people from North Africa have been the first migrants to arrive in the Atlantic Ocean archipelago since authorities dismantled a squalid makeshift camp that had brought criticism and shame to the government. One […]
(AP) Spanish authorities have dismantled a makeshift camp for migrant processing that for over three months was known as the “dock of shame” for holding thousands of Africans in squalor after they arrived in the Canary Islands. The Spanish government’s delegation in […]
(AP) A row over where to house African migrants increasingly arriving by boat on Spain’s Canary Islands deepened Thursday, when the mayor of the most affected town urged the Spanish government to transfer them out of local hotels. More than 20,000 West […]
(AFP) In a normal year, it would be high tourist season for the Canary Islands, but a huge influx of migrants has given the archipelago “a bad image,” bar owner Miguel Gonzalez grumbles. With migrant reception centres completely swamped after the arrival […]
(AFP) After three years, Said El Hallaji finally got to hug his brother Lehcen as they were reunited at Arguineguin, a once-quiet Canary Islands port now overwhelmed with migrant arrivals. More than 18,000 people have landed on this Spanish archipelago over the […]
(AP) Spain’s foreign minister met Sunday with Senegal’s president in the West African country’s capital Sunday to discuss the sudden increase of Senegalese migrants attempting to reach the Canary Islands by boat. Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya met with President Macky […]
(AFP) Spain will set up emergency camps for up to 7,000 migrants as part of a plan to tackle the huge influx of arrivals in the Canary Islands, the government said Friday. The plan also involves reinforcing Salvamento Maritimo’s coastguard rescue teams […]
(AP) Spain’s government is scrambling to manage the steady stream of migrants to its Canary Islands from West Africa by opening a second holding camp, officials said Wednesday, as political tensions rise in the Atlantic archipelago. The establishment of a second temporary […]
(AP) Spanish rescue services said Tuesday they intercepted more than 320 migrants in 10 boats found off the Canary Islands archipelago. The service said the steady stream of boats were located off the island of Gran Canaria between midnight and early morning. […]
(AP) Spanish rescue services have located 1,300 migrants in four days in the Atlantic Ocean and transferred them to the southern Canary Islands, further straining local emergency response capabilities as makeshift military camps for the newcomers were being readied. The latest to […]
(El País) Up until January 2017, Cristina B. was like any other young woman in Cullera, a small town in the Spanish region of Valencia. On social media, the 24-year-old was seen dressed as a fallera, wearing an elaborate traditional dress used […]
(Olive Press) A young woman who was planning to join jihadist terrorists in Syria has been arrested in Spain. Police say the woman — born and raised in Europe — had been rapidly radicalised and now wanted to join the so-called Islamic […]
(Reuters) Demonstrators on the Canary Islands on Saturday demanded better living conditions for thousands of migrants who have reached the Spanish archipelago from Africa. A slow procession of hundreds of demonstrators, some on foot and some in cars, crossed the island of […]
(Reuters) Spain will expand naval patrols around the Canary Islands and set up more migrant centres in response to a surge of arrivals from Africa, including more than 2,000 people last weekend, the regional policy minister said on Friday. Security forces will […]
(AP) Spain’s government is stepping up its response to a surge in the number of migrants crossing the Atlantic from Africa to the Canary Islands, though there was little new in the measures announced Friday. More than 16,000 migrants have arrived in […]
(Reuters) The Spanish military has set up a camp for migrants stranded at a harbour on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria after a wave of arrivals overwhelmed local authorities’ capacity to house them. The camp, consisting of 23 tents with capacity […]
(Reuters) Canary Islands hoteliers called for action to tackle a resurgent migrant crisis by the Spanish government and the European Union, saying on Wednesday that they could not allocate more rooms to house people who arrive on rickety boats. More than 15,400 […]
(Reuters) More than 2,000 African migrants were stranded in a dockside camp on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria on Tuesday after a wave of arrivals overwhelmed local authorities’ capacity to house them. “It’s a disaster. There’s a huge spike in arrivals […]
(AFP) Three men went on trial Tuesday for helping the jihadists behind the 2017 attacks in Barcelona and a nearby town that killed 16 people and left 140 wounded. The Islamic State group took responsibility for the August 17-18 bloodshed, including a […]
(AP) More than 1,600 migrants have either been rescued at sea or reached Spain’s Canary Islands in small boats over the weekend, emergency services for the archipelago said Sunday. The body of one person who had died during the perilous journey was […]
(AFP) Three men go on trial at Spain’s top criminal court Tuesday for helping the perpetrators of twin jihadist attacks in 2017 that killed 16 in Barcelona and a nearby seaside town. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bloodshed which […]
(Reuters) A Moroccan man was arrested in Barcelona for praising the beheading of a French schoolteacher outside Paris this month and inciting more attacks, police said on Saturday. The man, who was not named and who was detained on Friday, posted messages […]
(Olive Press) A man has been arrested on the Costa Blanca for recruiting young people to support the Islamic State terror group. Guardia Civil agents detained the 50-year-old Moroccan national in Altea, 10 kilometres north of Benidorm, on Wednesday (October 21). He […]
(Reuters) More than 1,000 migrants reached the Canary Islands in the past 48 hours, the Red Cross said on Saturday, the largest number since a 2006 crisis in the archipelago. Beefed-up security on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast is pushing traffickers and migrants south […]
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