As the NATO alliance agreed on a new “strategic concept” at its summit last week in Madrid, Italy and Spain are pushing NATO to address threats from North Africa.
According to VOA, hundreds of migrants attempted to breach the border fence separating the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco last month. At least 23 people died during the attempted crossing. The migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, are desperate to reach Europe to claim asylum and find a better life.
The Canary Islands in Spain also witnesses migrants arriving by boat. The number of migrants arriving has doubled since 2021 and Spain is feeling the heat on its borders.
Russo-Ukraine war leading to food shortage?
The Russian invasion has cut Ukraine’s supply of grain by two-thirds. Ukraine is one of the largest suppliers of grain in the world. Considering this, the UN has warned that the current situation could worsen the food situation in Africa leading to large scale migration.
“We have been looking at whether there is more movement of people linked to the increase in prices, to the difficulty of these countries in accessing grain and wheat,” Txema Santana, a migration advisor to the government of the Canary Islands, told the Reuters news agency. “What we have been told is that for the moment there is not, but it is a matter of time.”
Russian mercenaries in the mix?
The VOA also reports that, a resurgent Islamist militancy in parts of the Sahel is also driving migrant flows. Europe also says Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group are exacerbating the conflict. The European Union has imposed sanctions on the Wagner Group, which it says works for the Kremlin. Moscow denies any links but says it is providing “military assistance” through state channels.
“It is very clear that the Wagner company is there and that there are foreign troops in several countries of the Sahel,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told the Reuters news agency last month. “And definitely it is not foreign troops that the Sahel needs. What the Sahel needs is development and stability,” he added.
At last week’s NATO summit, Spain secured official recognition of the threats emanating from North Africa. “We are really glad to have included the southern flank in the strategic concept … especially about the African sub-Saharan and Sahel area, which is one of the major concerns for Europe and particularly for our country as a consequence of instability and risks coming from the irregular flux of migrants, terrorism, food crisis, energy crisis and the climate emergency too,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
