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Summing up a difficult year
in migration issues
Migratorymovements around theMediterranean,
along an axis that joins Africa with the European
Union from south to north, are anything but a
new phenomenon. They have been a feature of
the shared agenda of the EU and Africa for over
a decade. However, over the last twelve months
migratory movements on the southern border
of the EU have been particularly intense and
dramatic, receiving extensive media coverage.
Events in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and
Melilla, and on the Italian island of Lampedusa
have all highlighted the importance of a prob-
lem that not only persists but grows more acute
with each passing day. The images of boats set
adrift upon the sea, packed to the gunwales
with irregular immigrants, only represent the
latest tactic of the mafias whose trade is the
traffic in human beings. However, African mi-
gration is not focused exclusively on the EU.
Rather, we should remember that African mi-
gration towards Europe represents only a small
proportion of the migratory movements that
occur between countries within the African
continent.
The Mediterranean was the principal setting
for the arrival of numerous immigrants and ref-
ugees in southern Europe by sea during the first
half of 2014, under conditions that constitute a
major humanitarian crisis. This represented both
a qualitative and a quantitative transformation
of the migratory phenomenon in the
Mediterranean, with a rise of 25 per cent com-
pared to the numbers of people making the
same journey in 2013. We are talking about an
estimated figure of around 80,000 people. The
majority come from Eritrea, Syria and Mali, with
the preferred departure point being northern
Africa, and Libya in particular, where, due to the
lack of a national government capable of exer-
cising effective control over the country’s terri-
tory and its borders, conditions have been ripe
for the appearance of mafias and people-traf-
ficking groups.
In order to meet the challenge of these mi-
gratory movements, and of irregular migrants in
Economic and political
immigration: the
mediterranean perspective
José Manuel Albares