Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez ended his three-day tour of West African nations aimed at boosting cooperation in controlling irregular migration from the region to Spain’s Canary Islands, with a meeting with Senegal’s president in Dakar.
Following the talks between Sánchez and President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the pair held a joint press conference where the Spanish Prime Minister repeated his support for circular and regular migration between the two countries.
Sánchez also announced that they had signed a “memorandum of understanding,” allowing them to expand and improve their cooperation on circular migration, as well as incorporate new sectors such as training and capacity building for Senegalese workers who move to Spain.
Sanchez said that migration is “not a fairy tale” but is necessary and “convenient for the countries of origin as well as for the countries of destination”.
“I am talking, and I stress once again, about orderly migration, because irregular migration is directly a hell that leads to extreme situations of exploitation,” he added on Thursday.
Sánchez began his tour on Tuesday in Mauritania, where he said Spain would renew cooperation between the two nations’ security forces to combat people smuggling.
He visited Gambia on Wednesday and met with the President Adama Barrow, stating afterward that the two countries had agreed to work together on security, as well as on opportunities for legal, temporary migration.
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.
