The Ministry of the Interior re-deported Senegalese migrants by plane. In the last two weeks at least two flights have left from Madrid to Dakar, with a stop in Gran Canaria: on 14 February more than 20 people were expelled from the state and this week another 16 Senegalese have borne the same.

The Public Portal confirms that several activist sources in the Canary Islands have moved sixteen migrants this Tuesday from the Centro de Internamiento de Internacionales (CIE) in Barranco Seco, Gran Canaria. People who survived the dangerous Canary Islands migration route. After being rescued at sea, they were transferred to these pinch centers, which this week took them to the planes to exile. It is not clear, in addition to these sixteen people, who has been deported with this flight.

On the flight of 14 February, the Senegalese who were in the hut centers of Valencia and Murcia were expelled. However, the Ministry of the Interior has not clarified any information on the two mass deportations this month. According to the group Deportazioak Stop Deportation, the airline Air Nostrum has enabled transport to deportation and has organized these flights exclusively to deport migrants.

"We do not know the frequency of these flights, but the repetition poses a greater risk for the Senegalese community to enter the Internment Centers for Foreigners and to be deported from the police station, as well as to suffer citation traps to go to the police station or associated racist raids," warns Deportazioa Stop.

Mass deportations without cuts

Even before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Spanish State dismissed Senegalese migrants by plane. The last known deportation flight for this route was in 2018. By 2021, the government had already taken to the table to resume this dynamics of exile in Senegal. However, it eventually delayed that claim for unclear reasons so far.

The public has recalled that the Spanish Government has talked and negotiated with the Senegalese authorities about these deportations in 2020. Since then, "has signed Spanish agreements with the African country in the economic, migratory, labor and social security fields to facilitate deportations".

According to the newspaper ABC, between January 2020 and February 2021 there have been 35 air deportations from the Spanish state. Five deportations have also been carried out by boat.