Tense situation on the Río Tajo ship. The Civil Guard boat has been anchored since Thursday with 168 migrants on board in the bay of Nouadhibou, in Mauritania. The ship is currently waiting for negotiations to progress between the authorities of both countries to proceed with the disembarkation of migrants in the African country, according to sources from the Ministry of the Interior.
The events that have triggered this unusual situation took place when the Spanish patrol boat intercepted a cayuco with 168 people and the agents could not take them to the port of Nouadhibou, the commercial capital of the African country. The Mauritanian authorities did not authorize the Tagus River – one of the largest in the Armed Institute – to dock, but neither did they disembark the rescued, who had presumably left Senegal and were intercepted when they were more than 80 miles away. nautical (148 kilometres) of the Mauritanian coasts.
The tension grew due to the impossibility of docking in the port, even reaching the point of the agents firing into the air to control the situation and prevent a possible riot from taking place. In fact, on the same Saturday it was decided to reinforce the number of agents on the ship, mobilizing troops assigned to the Nouadhibou detachment. Agents and migrants currently occupy different compartments on the Armed Institute ship. However, from the ministry headed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska they insist that the situation is “calm” and that they trust that the situation will be resolved “imminently”.
Interior sources also highlight that the rescued people have received medical attention from the crew and that this morning the Civil Guard has set up a system so that, in turn, the rescued can contact their families.
“Dreadful conditions”
Although some information indicated that the patrol boat would head to the Canary Islands, with agents and migrants on board, the Ministry of the Interior strongly denies this. And from the AUGC, the professional association of the Civil Guard, they denounce the “painful conditions” in which the agents and migrants are. Conditions that they attribute to the lack of cooperation from Mauritania. “Safety on board and lack of hygiene can aggravate the situation,” they maintain from the union – in addition to emphasizing that the passage of time can cause an episode of tension to occur again.
#LAST MINUTE| Maximum attention and support at this time from AUGC to our colleagues who are anchored with the Tagus River Patrol Boat in Nouadhibou Bay with 170 immigrants rescued in canoes.
Mauritanian authorities do not allow rescuers to disembark. pic.twitter.com/vKtEw3CcyQ
— AUGC Civil Guard 🇪🇸 (@AUGC_Comunica) August 26, 2023
In its official X account, formerly Twitter, the AUGC has assured that the negotiations between the European agency Frontex and the Mauritanian authorities are being “unsuccessful”. Something that is not surprising since Spain has maintained an agreement with Mauritania for a decade that allows the return of any migrant, whatever their nationality, to their ports, as long as they have left its coasts or transited through its territory.
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