Spanish coast guard arrests 28 illegal immigrants

Spanish coast guards have arrested recently some 28 illegal immigrants who were trying to cross the Gibraltar strait aboard a Patera (small boat).

The makeshift boat departed from the northern Moroccan city of Sebta (still under Spanish control). Spanish police arrested the boat owner and opened an investigation which dismantled a web operating in Sebta and in other regions of Morocco.

A Moroccan court sentenced recently four persons to eight years in jail for transporting illegal emigrants.

Morocco and Spain have intensified cooperation in the struggle against illegal emigration and tightened sea control to hamper clandestine immigrants from reaching the Spanish Southern coasts.