The route of the pateras to Portugal starts in the Moroccan city of El Jadida

Activist Abdeslam Lassal (left) and journalist Hakkar Abdeslam, on Friday, September 9 in El Jadida.FP

El Jadida is that kind of provincial city where some visitors wouldn't mind extending their stay.

It has old Portuguese walls and a promenade.

Five minutes from the beach is a lush park, Hassan II, where students review their notes at two in the afternoon.

The city is 200 kilometers south from Rabat and 96 kilometers from Casablanca.

All by highway.

It seems that its 220,000 neighbors enjoy a good quality of life.

However, since December at least six boats have departed from areas close to this city towards the coasts of the Algarve, in Portugal.

The emigrants spent between 40 and 50 hours to cross the 400 kilometers that separate El Jadida from the Algarve (215 nautical miles).

The last of the boats arrived on the Portuguese coast on September 15, at the beach of Ilha Deserta, in the town of Faro.

For those hundreds of irregular migrants, who in Morocco are known as

, the true quality of life is not found in El Jadida (its name in French), but in Europe.

El Jadida was a Portuguese colony between 1502 and 1769, known then as Mazagón.

But there are no sentimental or economic ties with Portugal.

Why, then, do all the boats arriving in the Algarve come from this city?

“One possible reason”, says journalist Hakkar Abdeslam, 54, editor of the daily

, “is the ocean currents.

They are favorable for traveling.

It takes two days to reach the mainland.

The other reason is that once the road has been opened, as it was opened in December, those who arrive send the coordinates and the route remains open ”.

When the Portuguese Minister of the Interior, Eduardo Cabrita, was questioned in this regard in a parliamentary commission on June 16, he replied: “If we are talking about four landings [those that were then] since December, of 48 people, we must have some dimension ridiculous when compared to the 7,500 arrivals in Spain since January ".

In October, however, the Portuguese Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) acknowledged that the route exists and, as published in the

on October 6

, that the Navy will make a 70-meter submarine available to the SEF to support the surveillance at sea.

Abdeslam Lassal, 64, vice president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), points out that the Government of Morocco is trying by all means to prevent this exodus.

“The European Union gives millions of euros to Morocco to stop emigration.

And then you want to see the results.

For this reason, this new route is not pleasing neither Portugal nor Morocco ”.

The main source of employment in the province comes from the industry linked to the production of phosphate.

But from rural areas people continue to come looking for work.

Although Hakkar Abdeslam believes that the reason people emigrate is not lack of money.

“The real reason is lack of respect.

If you don't have a job, if they take away certain rights, then you leave.

And once being

gets into your head,

you don't think about anything else.

Young people are tired of seeing garbage in the streets, that nobody respects the traffic lights… ”.

Lassal interrupts his friend: “I think you speak of a minority.

Most people just want to improve their life. "

The boats that leave from here also sometimes point towards Spain.

Last Monday the authorities of the Lamharza Sahel area, in the province of El Jadida, aborted the trip of 20 Moroccans who were trying to reach Spain aboard a fishing boat that was stolen in a neighboring town.

Each traveler paid the equivalent of 1,850 euros (20,000 dirhams) for the journey.

So far no shipwreck has been recorded.

"But that does not mean that the route is safe," explains the director of

s.

“It is just a statistical question.

Fewer boats leave here than from other places and that is why there are fewer shipwrecks ”.

Hakkar Abdeslam explains that one of the vessels was lost at sea for up to five days.

“But spending two days on the high seas is not easy.

Once you leave, you only think about what you have left behind and how you are going to fix it when you arrive.

And in the meantime, you are exposed to any boat ramming into the boat without seeing it or to any storm that may ensue.

The

have to arrive or die ”.