The 22 migrants from North Africa today intercepted off Quarteira, in the Algarve, have already tested Covid-19 and were transported to a support area for the population created under the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking to journalists, the captain of the Port of Faro He added that the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM) has already carried out screening tests for the disease and that migrants will "wait for the results in the ZAP [Population Support Zone] of Quarteira", located at Escola EB 2,3 D. Dinis.
Fernando Rocha Pacheco, who was speaking at the Quarteira Salva-Vidas Station, where the group was sent, stressed that “the results should still be known today” and that the men should then be “referred to a suitable place”.
After being intercepted as they prepared to disembark at Praia de Vale do Lobo, the migrants were taken to those facilities, where they stayed between 8:00 and 12:30, under the guard of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), which he interrogated them and sought to know their provenance.
According to Fernando Rocha Pacheco, the migrants did not bring documentation and two of them began by revealing that they were “between 16 and 17 years old”, but “they later corrected it to 18 years old”, putting the ages of 22 men “between 18 and 30 years old ».
They revealed that they left “three days ago from El-Jadida”, in Morocco, in a small wooden boat measuring seven meters and with a capacity for between seven and 10 people, equipped with an 18 horsepower engine and another substitute.
“In nautical terms it's possible and, if they left the place where they say they left, it's 230 miles in 46 hours. It is possible to do it at five knots, although the vessel is small and has been overcrowded», he calculated.
The also commander of the Southern Maritime Zone added "that it is necessary to carry out investigations to verify the facts" that the group alleges, but reinforced that, with an engine of this power, it would be a journey made "in slow traffic", which "it is possible to do in three days».
The small vessel, seven meters long, was sighted at around 4:00 am by a fishing master, who considered it suspicious for being "laden with people", warning the authorities.
After the alert, elements of the Maritime Police of Faro and from the Quarteira Lifeguard Station started searches by sea and by land, having detected and intercepted the vessel at 4:50 am, when the crew "already prepared to disembark".
The 22 men were then sent to the Quarteira Lifeguard Station, making this route “in the vessel itself”, where they were assisted, provided with clothing and tested by Covid-19 by INEM .
This is second case, in a few days, involving migrants allegedly of Moroccan origin who landed in the Algarve, after last week the authorities detected a vessel carrying seven men off Olhão.
As early as January 29 another group of 11 migrants had arrived on the Algarve coast, preceded by a vessel with eight men, on December 11, 2019.
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