Politico
Janosch Delcker
Fabrice Leggeri said his agency registered 6,000 irregular border crossings from Africa in the region last month.
Fabrice Leggeri, head of EU border agency Frontex | Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images
BERLIN — Migrants are increasingly taking the Western route across the Mediterranean to reach Europe via Spain, the head of the EU’s border monitoring agency warned.
“If you ask me about my greatest concern, I say it’s Spain,” Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag in an interview to be published Sunday, excerpts of which were released Saturday.
The agency registered 6,000 irregular border crossings from Africa in the region last month, Leggeri said. Around half of those trying to enter the Continent are Moroccans, while the rest of them come from countries in West Africa, he added.
“If numbers there [continue to] increase as they did recently, this route will become the most important one [into Europe],” he told the newspaper.
Increasingly, traffickers in Niger offer migrants to bring them to Europe via Morocco instead of through Libya, Welt am Sonntag wrote, referring to Frontex information.
Leggeri stressed the importance of setting up international housing centers in Africa where migrants are brought back to when they’re picked up at sea instead of bringing them to Europe.
