One route closes, another one opens

Politico reports that Italy’s (and in part EU’s) strategy in Libya (which mainly consists in supporting the controversial Libyan coast guard in order to make the journey harder and de facto more dangerous for undocumented migrants) might be paying off:

”In the first 10 days of August, the number of migrants making the crossing to Italian shores, mainly from Libya, fell 76 percent compared to the same period last year”

Meanwhile, the BBC noticed that the number of arrivals to Spain has tripled this year:

Three times as many migrants have arrived in Spain so far this year compared to the same period in 2016, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says.

It means the number of sea arrivals in Spain – at 8,385 – could overtake Greece, which has had 11,713 people.

The shift may be because migrants are finding the Spanish route safer.

Hence, those who are migrating do not disappear – they are just forced to take another route. As long as safe and legal routes to Europe are not available, these sightings are likely to remain common:

This has just happened in a beach in the south of Spain. Migrants arriving by boat on a Spanish beach and scattered among sunbathers. pic.twitter.com/cleeGDXYig

— Emilio Morenatti (@EmilioMorenatti) August 9, 2017