Staff Reporter
NARCO speedboats are being repurposed to bring hundreds of illegal immigrants to Spanish shores, with Almeria becoming ground zero.
On Tuesday alone, 186 migrants were registered and checked over by a Red Cross centre in the Port of Almeria.
They had arrived in eight separate groups, ranging from 12 to 40 individuals, on state-of-the-art speedboats equipped with up to four 300-horsepower engines, similar to those used by fuel smugglers in the drug trade.
The day before on Monday, three dinghies with 95 people disembarked in Adra, and another four dinghies with 77 occupants arrived in El Ejido.
Additionally, one more dinghy carrying 45 immigrants diverted to the Albuñol region in Granada, according to the Unified Association of the Civil Guard (AUGC).
The relentless surge in makeshift vessels – including precarious cayucos, taxi dinghies, and speedboats – bringing people to Spanish shores is orchestrated mainly by criminal syndicates.
These groups charge their customers between €3,000 and €5,000 per trip from Algeria and Morocco.
Moroccan narco-speedboats, shifting their cargo from hashish to human beings, have completely overwhelmed the capacities of the State Security Forces and local administrations in the province.
With speeds exceeding 30 knots, they make any interception attempts by the Civil Guard’s maritime patrol boats utterly futile.
The Guard simply supervises from afar, providing guidance to the ground-based units.
The constant influx of vessels unloading over a hundred migrants ashore is ‘untenable’, according to Victor Vega, the provincial secretary of AUGC.
There are not enough officers, vehicles, or resources to accommodate the humanitarian needs, let alone the custody, transport, and transfer from the beach to the Red Cross centre, he said.
With each new arrival, the Red Cross is once again overwhelmed, prompting transfers via vans and buses to Algeciras and Barcelona, as well as other facilities in Málaga, Motril, and Murcia.
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