MADRID, Aug 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — More than 200 migrants were rescued on Wednesday by the Spanish coastguard as they attempted to make the crossing from Africa to Spain, rescue services said on Thursday.
The rescue comes at a time when Spain is preparing for the arrival on a Spanish warship of 15 migrants from an Italian port following a prolonged standoff between Italian authorities and a Spanish-registered private rescue boat.
Those migrants were picked up after a long standoff between Italian authorities and a Spanish-registered private rescue boat.
On Thursday, the coastguard said the 208 migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa were found in three rafts in the Alboran Sea, between north-eastern Morocco and south-eastern Spain, on Wednesday afternoon.
They were taken to Almeria and Malaga, it said.
Interior Ministry data shows 18,018 migrants arrived in Spain this year by mid-August.
This was a decrease of 39 per cent from the same period last year.
UN data shows irregular sea arrivals in the EU from the Mena region dropped from more than a million in 2015 to about 141,500 people last year.
Almost 15,000 people are estimated to have died or gone missing in the perilous sea voyage. — NNN-AGENCIES
