DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal and Spain signed a memorandum of understanding to encourage circular migration as part of efforts to mitigate migration flows that have been increasing amid the coronavirus pandemic. “Spain wants to order migratory flows through legal channels,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said after a meeting with Senegal’s President Macky Sall while visiting the West African coastal nation. More than 41,000 people from Morocco and West Africa crossed to Spain in 2020, and more than half of them did it by embarking on flimsy boats to the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, off the northwestern African coast. Hundreds died last year after embarking on the deadly water route.
