Spain’s leader visits Gambia as part of a West Africa tour to tackle irregular migration

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited Gambia on Wednesday as part of a trip through three West African nations aimed at boosting cooperation in controlling irregular migration from the region to Spain’s Canary Islands.

Sánchez met with Gambia’s President Adama Barrow and said afterward that the two countries had agreed to work together on security, as well as on opportunities for legal, temporary migration, but he gave no details. “Spain, my country, wants to give a new impetus to our relationship with Africa,” Sánchez said in the capital, Banjul.

It was the first time a Spanish prime minister has visited the small country of 2.7 million inhabitants. Sánchez began his tour Tuesday in Mauritania, where he said Spain would renew cooperation between the two nations’ security forces to combat people smuggling. He planned to meet with leaders in Senegal on Thursday.

The three coastal African nations have become the main departure points of migrants trying to reach the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago located close to the African coast and used as a stepping stone for migrants and refugees trying to reach continental Europe.

More than 22,000 people have disembarked on its shores since January, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry, more than double the number of irregular arrivals for the same period last year.

Sánchez also met with a small number of Spanish law enforcement officers who are in Gambia to help the country deal with its border enforcement. Seven civil guard members and two police officers from Spain have been deployed to the country, the smallest by area on the African mainland.

Barrow thanked Spain for the officers’ help in dealing with irregular migration, saying they have provided “fantastic” cooperation.

Among migrants making it to the Canaries are thousands of Malian refugees fleeing violence and instability in the Sahelian nation as well as youth from Senegal, Mauritania and other West African countries who are seeking better job opportunities abroad. There are also increasingly more teenagers and children traveling alone to the Canary Islands, which has overwhelmed the local government responsible for their care.

Over 4,000 Gambians arrived in Europe through the deadly Atlantic route last year according to the U.N.’s migration agency. Last month, a boat carrying 300 migrants, mostly from Gambia and Senegal, capsized off Mauritania. More than a dozen died and at least 150 others went missing.

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Associated Press writer Renata Brito in Barcelona, Spain contributed to this report.