Over the weekend alone, 1,457 people reportedly arrived on the coast of the Canary Islands. Most people took “one of the deadliest routes in the world” to reach Spain.
More than 1,400 migrants from Africa arrived on the coast of the Canary Islands over the weekend. As the Spanish archipelago’s rescue services announced on Sunday, a total of 1,457 people arrived on the islands in several boats between Friday night and Sunday. According to a spokesperson, they came from sub-Saharan countries.
Among other things, a wooden boat with 321 people on board landed on Saturday on the island of El Hierro, another emergency services spokeswoman told the AFP news agency. Public television channel TVE showed images of the arrival of the boat full of people waving at the port. Never before had so many people been transported across the sea to the Canary Islands in a single boat.
80% more than in the same period last year
According to the latest figures from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, 23,537 migrants arrived in the archipelago off the west coast of North Africa between January 1 and October 15. This is 80% more than in the same period last year. In the first two weeks of October, 8,561 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands, the highest number since 2006, according to media reports.
During a visit to the archipelago last week, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska attributed the “resurgence” in the number of migrants to a “destabilization of the Sahel region”. As a result of increased controls in the Mediterranean, the migration route through the Canary Islands has recently become more important, although it is long and dangerous.
Spain has expressed concern about the increase in irregular migration this year. Euroland has already stated that it cannot deal with the situation without EU help. The migration route from the Atlantic to the Canary Islands, typically used by African migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, is one of the deadliest in the world. (APA)