Several boatloads of illegal migrants from North Africa pulled up undetected on a beach in Mallorca on Sunday as the Spanish island continued to experience high volumes of new arrivals from across the Mediterranean.
Amateur footage posted on social media captured the moment around a dozen adult males and one minor disembarked near the town of Colonia de Sant Jordi to the south of the island.
Mallorca Diario reported the group had not been picked up by the authorities. The Security Forces and Corps was actively seeking to locate the cohort and requesting any information that could lead to its whereabouts.
The boat was one of many to arrive on Mallorca’s shores over the weekend, with the local government reporting that 18 North Africans had also landed near Pilar de la Mola, Formentera, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
This group, too, has not been apprehended.
Furthermore, shortly after 11 a.m. on the same day, another 22 people of North African origin were picked up by a humanitarian vessel approximately 20 miles southeast of the island. They were transported to Cabrera where the Civil Guard intervened and documented their arrival.
In total, 54 people were spotted arriving over the weekend, increasing the total number of illegal migrants landing on the Balearic Islands so far this year to 379 people in 23 boats.
Last year, a total of 2,278 migrants were recorded arriving on the Spanish archipelago in 128 boats.
Just last month, José María Manso, the long-serving chief inspector of the National Police’s immigration brigade on Mallorca revealed the vast majority of asylum-seeking migrants arriving on the island are regularly committing crimes and claimed it is impossible to deport them.
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“Now, on a daily basis, it is the problem of the boats that come from Algeria and everything that surrounds those who arrive and stay. It is a big problem that involves the entire leadership,” Manso told the Ultima Hora publication.
“There is an increasingly larger trickle of people staying in Mallorca irregularly. The vast majority who stay here are committing crimes and are very repeat offenders in their actions. Without any problem, they can commit up to 30 crimes in a short time,” he added.
