Chafarinas Islands

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The Chafarinas Islands (Template:Langx Template:IPA, Template:Langx or Template:Lang, Template:Langx or Template:Lang), also spelled Zafarin, Djaferin<ref name="britannica">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> or Zafarani,<ref name="usps">Template:Cite web</ref> are a group of three Spanish small islets located in the Alboran Sea off the coast of Africa with an aggregate area of Template:Convert, Template:Convert to the east of Nador and Template:Convert off the Moroccan town of Ras Kebdana. They are uninhabited except for a garrison of the Spanish Army,<ref name="Lechado"> MARÍA DEL CARMEN LECHADO GRANADOS: SOCIEDAD Y VIDA COTIDIANA EN LAS ISLAS CHAFARINAS (pdf, in Spanish)</ref> though there was also a civil population roughly between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries.<ref name="Lechado" />

The Chafarinas Islands are one of the Spanish territories in North Africa off the Moroccan coast known as Template:Lang. The islands are administered by Spain but also claimed by Morocco as part of its territory alongside other Spanish overseas territories in Northern Africa.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

These offshore islands were probably the Template:Lang of the Romans and the Template:Lang of the Arabs.<ref>{{#if: |

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They were uninhabited and unclaimed in 1848, when the French government decided to occupy them, in order to monitor the tribes living in the border area between Morocco and French Algeria. A small expedition under the command of then Colonel MacMahon left Oran by sea and by land in January 1848 to take possession of the islands. Forewarned by its consul in Oran, Spain, which also coveted the Chafarinas, quickly dispatched a warship to the islands from Malaga. When the French arrived, the Spaniards had already taken possession of the islands in the name of Queen Isabel II.<ref>L'Exploration, Paris, vol. 18, 2nd semester 1884, p. 531.</ref>

Geography

The Chafarinas Islands are made up of three islands (from west to east, with areas in hectares):

Isla del Congreso (25.6 ha)
Isla de Isabel II (15.3 ha) (with garrison)
Isla del Rey (11.6 ha).

Under Spanish control since 1847, there is a 30-man<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> military garrison on Isla Isabel II, the only stable population on the small archipelago, down from 426 people in 1900 and 736 people in 1910. Small numbers of scientists, anti-trafficking police, and other authorized personnel sometimes increase the population to around 50.

Natural history

The islands had relevance in Spanish environmentalist circles during the 1980s and 1990s, as the last individual of Mediterranean monk seal in Spanish territory lived there until it disappeared in the 1990s.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nine out of eleven of its marine invertebrates are considered endangered species and it is the home of the second largest colony of endangered Audouin's gull in the world.<ref name = ElPais>Ceberia, Monica et al (17 September 2012) The last remains of the empire El Pais in English, Retrieved 24 September 2012</ref> The islands have been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because they support, as well as the Audouin's gull colony, a breeding colony of Scopoli's shearwaters, with some 800–1,000 breeding pairs estimated in 2001–2004.<ref name=bli>Template:Cite web</ref>