DAKAR (Reuters):

Spain and Senegal want to incorporate West African states in a common strategy against illegal migration that combines security measures with more Spanish aid and investment, officials said on Saturday.

Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba said he had discussed with Senegalese leaders the idea of calling a regional conference on migration to which Senegal's neighbours Mauritania, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia would be invited.

He made the announcement after a two-day visit to Senegal in which he and his cabinet colleague Jesús Caldera, the minister for labour, announced that several hundred job contracts would be created this year in Spain for Senegalese workers.

These legal job openings are part of a strategy by Spain and Senegal to try to avoid a repeat of last year's exodus of 35,000, illegal job-seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa, many of them Senegalese, who arrived in boats in the Spanish Canary Islands.

Reduction

Rubalcaba said coordinated Spanish-Senegalese-European Union air and sea patrols had helped sharply reduce migrant arrivals in the Canaries so far this year to just over 4,000.

But he added that"holes and problems" existed in this anti-migrant shield, notably in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia from where departures of Europe-bound illegal migrants were continuing and authorities found it more difficult to cooperate.

"I think it's good to reinforce regional cooperation, it makes sense," Rubalcaba said, adding Spain and Senegal would try to "export" their joint strategy against illegal migrants.

No date had been set yet for the regional conference, which was expected to be hosted by Senegal.

While Spain was reinforcing its air and sea patrolling in the triangle formed by Mauritania, the Cape Verde Islands and Senegal, migrant departures had moved further south to the unguarded creeks and islets of Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea.