CARTAGENA, Spain – A boat carrying 62 migrants, including 15 minors, surprised bathers at Barco Cove in Cartagena, Murcia, on Wednesday, with the vessel’s size drawing particular attention as it approached the crowded beach. The emergency coordination centre received several calls early in the afternoon alerting authorities to the arrival of the vessel, from which 45 men, two women, and 15 minors, all male, disembarked, according to sources from the Government Delegation in Murcia.
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Several videos captured the moment the boat reached the shore, showing occupants jumping into the water just metres from the sand, and shortly after the migrants made landfall, the boat headed back out to sea and moved away from the coast. In accordance with protocol, all migrants were attended to by public administrations and NGOs, and their corresponding expulsion procedures are being processed, Government Delegation sources said.
Murcia’s president, Fernando López Miras, later denounced the lack of control over the arrival of organised boats to the region’s coasts, stating that this was not a wooden cayuco that had drifted all night but rather a large launch with four engines and a thousand horsepower that arrived, disembarked, and departed. He described the operation as organised and prepared, expressing his inability to understand how such a vessel could reach the region’s coasts without being detected by the State Administration.
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López Miras noted that there were no security personnel on the beach and questioned what had occurred, not only in this specific case but also in the frequent incidents in the region, highlighting that 132 minors had arrived by boat to Murcia in July alone, with a total of 492 so far this year. The arrival has intensified calls for stronger coastal surveillance and more effective migration management, as local authorities express growing frustration over what they perceive as insufficient support from the central government in addressing the ongoing flow of irregular arrivals to the Spanish coast.
