Musings From Abroad

Spain’s PM Sanchez visits West Africa with plans to address migration surge

Published

3 months ago

August 26, 2024

On Tuesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez embarks on his second trip to West Africa this year to reduce migration to the Canary Islands and oppose Russian influence in the Sahel.

According to figures from the European Union border agency, Frontex, the number of persons migrating via the West African route has increased by 154% this year, with 21,620 people arriving to the Canary Islands in the first seven months.

Resources on the Spanish archipelago have been overextended by the surge, and local officials fear they may have to put migrants in military camps or even tents in anticipation of a spike in arrivals brought on by calmer weather in the Atlantic Ocean.

Spanish officials worry that in the upcoming months, up to 150,000 additional African migrants will attempt the dangerous journey.

Nearly half of the recent entrants, according to Frontex data, are Malians who were driven from their nation due to an economic and political crisis that involves the Russian mercenary outfit Wagner.

Sanchez is concentrating on fortifying ties with the primary places from which migrant boats depart: Mauritania, Senegal, and Gambia. Mali’s borders are shared by the first two.

As part of Madrid’s plan to provide financial and security support to the places from which migrant boats sail, Spanish police have been strengthening border control in West Africa for a considerable amount of time.

According to a government source, Spain will negotiate circular migration agreements with Mauritania and the Gambia during this trip. It already has one with Senegal.

These agreements will allow workers from these nations to temporarily enter Spain to meet labour demands before returning to their home countries.

In addition, Spain intends to visit Mali again after the EU military operation there was closed in May of last year. According to a senior Spanish military commander, Spain is in talks with Bamako on bilateral military aid, whilst France pushed for the mission’s termination.

“We cannot leave the ground empty for Russian forces to occupy. It is important to maintain a presence in the region,” the officer, who requested anonymity, told Reuters.
The Spanish mission could continue the training of the previous European mission, the source said.

The Ministry of Defence of Spain affirmed that discussions for cooperation with Mali were underway, but it did not elaborate. In light of the migration surge, Spain is pushing for a greater emphasis on the global south, particularly the Sahel, at the EU and NATO.

The co-director of the Institute for Conflict Studies and Humanitarian Action, Jesus Nunez Villaverde, stated that poverty and the consequences of climate change must be tackled in order to address the issues facing the Sahel.

“The solution is not military aid, which is a repetition of a failed model. A different kind of aid is needed,” he said.

Related Topics:Featured Pedro Sanchez Spain

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Musings From Abroad

UN Security Council deliberates stance on Sudan war

Published

2 days ago

November 13, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The UN Security Council is discussing a British-drafted resolution calling on Sudan’s warring parties to stop hostilities and permit safe, quick, and unimpeded assistance supplies across borders and front lines.

The world’s largest relocation crisis began in April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces engaged in a power battle ahead of a planned transfer to civilian administration.

Waves of ethnically motivated violence have resulted, with the RSF mostly to blame. The RSF has blamed the action on rogue actors and denies causing harm to civilians in Sudan. Two RSF generals were named last week by a Security Council committee in the first U.N. sanctions levied during the ongoing conflict.

“Nineteen months into the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including the widespread rape of women and girls,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters at the start of this month as Britain assumed the Security Council’s presidency for November.

“More than half the Sudanese population are experiencing severe food insecurity,” she said. “Despite this, the SAF and the RSF remain focussed on fighting each other and not the famine and suffering facing their country.”

According to diplomats, Britain wants to vote on the draft resolution as soon as possible. A resolution must receive nine votes or more to pass and not be vetoed by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.

Nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, require aid, according to the U.N., since 11 million people have abandoned their homes and famine has spread to displacement camps. Of those, around 3 million have departed for other nations.

In its draft language, Britain “demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities” and “demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives” throughout Sudan.

It also “calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan.”

Additionally, the draft urges that assistance deliveries continue to be made through the Adre border crossing with Chad “and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments.”

Sudanese authorities have permitted the U.N. and relief organisations to enter Darfur through the Adre border crossing for three months, ending in mid-November.

Musings From Abroad

South Africa worry Trump’s victory might affect climate fight

Published

5 days ago

November 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

South Africa’s environment minister has expressed concern about the potential effects of Donald Trump’s victory on climate change negotiations.

The demise of Germany’s coalition government this week and Trump’s election coincide with COP29 negotiations to address global warming, which experts credit for this year’s devastating hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves.

“We are concerned about America because we don’t know what they’re going to do … how (it) is going to approach COP,” South African Environment Minister Dion George told Reuters.

“Mr. Trump said that he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but we don’t know what will happen,” George added in a telephone interview on Friday.

International partners are concerned that the prospect of an administration led by Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, will de-motivate poor and middle-income countries who want rich nations to shoulder more of its financial burden.

South Africa, which is one of the world’s top 15 greenhouse gas emitters and accounts for 30% of the continent’s emissions, has accepted $11.6 billion from rich nations, mainly in loans, for a switch from coal to renewable energy.

This is seen as a potential model for other ‘Global South’ countries who say financing pledges of $100 billion, which took years to come through, are insufficient.

“It’s certainly not enough. We need another target,” George said. “But then the question is: as the voter base is shifting in developed economies, are they actually going to pay it?”

The South African minister said he had been reassured by German officials that Europe’s stance at the COP29 climate talks will not be hurt by Berlin’s political crisis.

George said that Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary for international climate action, had contacted him to say it will be up to the European Union to maintain leadership.

“Their position is not changed and that is how they will approach COP,” George said, adding: “They’re on Team Europe. The European Union and German have clearly set out their objectives.”