Plan targets African migration

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From combined dispatches

DAKAR, Senegal -- Authorities in Europe and Africa yesterday drew up a joint plan to fight illegal migration that will combine tougher prevention measures with more aid to persuade young Africans to stay in their homelands.

Harrowing images of parched, exhausted young Africans washing ashore in boats on Spain's Canary Islands by the thousands this year have given added urgency to moves to improve international cooperation to combat clandestine emigration.

Hundreds are thought to die in the perilous sea voyages of more than 600 miles organized from Mauritania and Senegal by traffickers who run a lucrative business carrying would-be migrants seeking a better life in Europe.

Starting a two-day meeting in the Senegalese capital, senior officials from more than 50 countries of Europe and Africa worked yesterday on a joint action plan that foresees an integrated multinational strategy on migration.

The plan -- originally drafted by Morocco, Spain and France, three countries in the front line of the immigration problem -- is expected to be adopted by European and African ministers at a summit on migration July 10 and 11 in the Moroccan capital, Rabat.

"This is a political initiative of the highest importance that aims to combine both managing migrant flows and managing development," said Alvaro Iranzo, a senior Spanish Foreign Ministry official.

On Europe's southern flank facing Africa, Spain is the first target of thousands of penniless sub-Saharan Africans seeking entry to Europe, and Madrid has begun a diplomatic offensive in West Africa to try to stanch the flow.

But while coastal patrols and surveillance can cut illegal departures, European and African experts agree that such short-term measures will be useless unless the unemployment, poverty and conflict that prompt migration from Africa are tackled.

"If we don't go to the root causes, there's not going to be a solution," Moroccan delegation chief Youssef Amrani said.