The incident attached special significance since the briefing on the surprising raid announced the arrest of four police officers clearly involved in some way in the smuggling of illegal immigrants.

The official information released until Wednesday noon refrained from mentioning the rank and names of the detained officers.

For their proximity to the Italian and Spanish coasts, Libya, Mauritania and Tunisia, among others, are the main ports of embarkation for undocumented migrants of southern Sahara. Although they are not the only ones, as the business is so lucrative that traffickers from other latitudes try their luck.

Another destination favored by undocumented migrants is South Africa, both by sea and by land, as was apparently the purpose of those Ethiopians arrested in this capital.

Citizens from countries as far away from Africa as Pakistan and Afghanistan, swell the passenger lists of the boats that set sail for Europe in a risky crossing that sometimes ends in an anonymous burial in the beds of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

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