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AFP
Madrid
The number of migrants arriving in Spain so far this year has soared more than 88 percent from the same period in 2016, Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said Tuesday.
Speaking in a parliamentary commission on internal affairs, he added that the number of people merely attempting to get to the Spanish overseas territory of Ceuta in northern Morocco had dramatically increased.
Up until Monday, 15,473 migrants had entered Spain illegally by sea and over land, he said.
Of the 11,162 people who arrived by sea, some 11,000 were rescued by coastguards from rickety boats in which they were crossing the Mediterranean between Morocco and Spain.
The others arrived on their own.
At least 121 people have died along the way, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Many Africans undertaking the long route to Europe are choosing to avoid crossing danger-ridden Libya to get to Italy along the so-called central Mediterranean route, and choosing instead to get there via Morocco and Spain.
But figures show that the route to Italy is still the most popular, with some 100,000 people arriving so far this year.
Zoido said there had been a leap in coordinated attempts to break through high double border fences or storm frontier posts in Ceuta, which with Melilla, another Spanish territory in northern Morocco, represents the only land border between Africa and Europe.
