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Refugees and Migrants Arriving in Spain, January 2019

Pays
Espagne
+ 20
Sources
Govt. Spain
+ 1
Date de publication
Origine
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INTRODUCTION

In 2017, 28,300 refugees and migrants arrived to Spain by the Western Mediterranean route. 78 per cent arrived by sea, and 22 per cent crossed by land routes to the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Government figures for 2017 indicated that 87 per cent of these arrivals came from eight countries: Morocco (19 per cent), Algeria (18 per cent), Guinea (14 per cent), Côte d’Ivoire (13 per cent), Gambia (10 per cent), Syria (8 per cent), Cameroon (3 per cent), and Mali (2 per cent).

Based on Government data, 86 per cent of arrivals to Spain through the Western Mediterranean route were adults (8 per cent female; 92 per cent male) and 14 per cent were children. At least two-thirds of the children who arrived in 2017 were unaccompanied or separated (just over 2,400). While more than half of the arrivals from Sub-Saharan African countries arrived by sea to the Spanish mainland, Syrians arrived almost exclusively by land to Melilla (97 per cent), during the period covered by the profiling exercise. In addition, roughly half of Moroccans and Algerians arrived by sea to the Spanish mainland, with the remaining arrivals roughly divided between Ceuta and Melilla.

By the end of 2017, 30,445 people had applied for asylum in Spain; 36 per cent were from Africa or the Middle East,* largely arriving through the Western Mediterranean route. The rest were mainly from Central or Latin America (51 per cent), or Eastern Europe (9 per cent), mostly arriving by air and land.