Mauritania Calls for Help On E.U.-Bound Migrant Flood

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania, March 16 -- Migrants from elsewhere in Africa are overwhelming Mauritania, setting out from the country on an often deadly voyage to Europe, the prime minister said Thursday.

More than 1,000 Africans have died in the past four months while trying to sail in small wooden boats from Mauritania to Spain's Canary Islands, about 600 miles away off the coast of northwest Africa, according to a branch office of the Red Crescent.

Prime Minister Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar said his vast, impoverished country in West Africa was helpless against the flood of would-be migrants.

"Mauritania can't control its borders and needs help against this massive wave of immigrants," he told reporters. "We need help of all types: planes, boats, vehicles."

Boubacar called on the international community for help, singling out the European Union, the destination of choice for most of the migrants. He described a worsening crisis, saying that authorities had arrested 3,900 migrants in 2005 but that 1,200 had been detained already this year.

Last year, Africans stormed the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta in northern Morocco to enter Europe, and 11 people were killed, some of them shot by security forces.

North African countries then reportedly increased patrols along long-established trans-Sahara trade routes, perhaps pressuring human traffickers to step up efforts to send their human cargo to the Canary Islands.

A delegation of Spanish officials arrived Thursday in the capital, Nouakchott, for talks with Mauritania's military ruler, Col. Ely Ould Mohammed Vall.

The two countries hope for an "urgent plan of cooperation," with Spain helping Mauritania patrol its coastline while establishing centers to process migrants found in the country, according to a government statement.

African migrants, seeking employment or better prospects in Europe, have been using traditional wooden fishing canoes, called pirogues, to cross the treacherous waters. The deep-walled pirogues, usually powered by a single outboard engine, are open to the elements and rarely have navigational or emergency equipment.

The boats traditionally have set out from Morocco or Western Sahara, traveling to the Spanish mainland or the Canary Islands.

Spain said Wednesday that a marine hospital ship found the bodies of 24 people off the coast of Mauritania, although no vessel was found. All were thought to be from sub-Saharan countries.

The news came only hours after police intercepted 400 Africans trying to reach the Canary Islands -- a single-day record -- in nine crowded boats that had set out from Mauritania.