According to the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV), the trial against the alleged skipper of a small boat is scheduled for Tuesday starting at 11:30 a.m. in the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Alicante.
The prosecution is asking for 5 years in prison for the skipper of a precarious boat type boat that charged eleven migrants between 1,300 and 1,700 euro to transport them from Algeria to Spain off the coast of Alicante.
The man is accused of an alleged crime against the rights of foreign citizens for bringing migrants on October 12, 2023 in a seven-metre-long boat without any navigation licence or safety devices.
A Guardia Civil patrol boat located the men half a mile from the coast of Santa Pola, a day after leaving Tipasa, in Algiers. After their rescue, the agents were in charge of transferring the crew to the Temporary Care Centre for Foreigners in the Port of Alicante, where they received social and health care from the Cruz Roja before being handed over to the National Police.
This week’s trial comes shortly after the annual assessment of irregular migration presented by the Ministry of the Interior. In reviewing the 2023 figures, they point out that the sea route rose by 92.3%, to 55,618 people, while the number of immigrants arriving in Ceuta and Melilla by land fell to 1,234, 46% less. By land, the greatest migratory pressure was greater in Ceuta (1,068 foreigners) than in Melilla (166).
Despite the skyrocketing figures in this balance, the 2023 data is below the record reached in 2018, when almost 64,300 foreigners were found trying to enter Spain irregularly. That year the vast majority (57,498) also used boats and canoes to reach Spain, but the main destination then was not the Canary Islands, but the Andalusian coasts.
After the figures were released, Interior sources recalled that migration is a phenomenon of “enormous complexity” influenced by numerous structural factors that affect the African continent, which is why pressure will continue to exist at all of the EU’s external borders.
