The new maritime barriers system installed by Spain in the coastal waters of the autonomous city of Ceuta in order to prevent the flow of illegal migrants from Morocco will not be sufficient for a fundamental solution to the migration problem.
Sea-news.az reports that field experts state that this floating barrier deployed at sea is only an auxiliary security measure and will merely temporarily reduce cases of illegal border crossing via water.
Abdulhamid Jamur, an expert on migration and maritime security issues, noted that the tightening of control measures at sea and land borders always results in smugglers finding new routes to bypass them. As an example, the expert pointed to the maritime crisis in the direction of the Canary Islands, where human traffickers and criminal networks found ways to evade modern marine radar surveillance systems (SIVE).
According to Abdulhamid Jamur, without a comprehensive approach such as eliminating the socio-economic causes giving rise to illegal migration, as well as developing international cooperation among maritime protection agencies of the countries of origin, transit, and destination, purely technical sea barriers will have extremely limited effectiveness.
