This Sunday, according to the archipelago’s rescue services, nearly 1,200 migrants have arrived on the coasts of the Canary Islands since Saturday, notably on board a boat which carried a record number of 321 people. During the first two weeks of October, 8,561 migrants arrived, a record figure according to Spanish media.
Nearly 1,200 migrants have arrived on the coasts of the Canary Islands since Saturday, notably aboard a boat carrying a record number of 321 people, the rescue services of the Spanish archipelago located in the Atlantic, announced on Sunday. off Morocco. In total, 1,154 migrants reached the islands in different precarious boats between the night of Friday and Saturday and the morning of Sunday, among the surge in arrivals in recent weeks, emergency services announced on the social network ex-Twitter).
23,537 migrants since the start of the year
On Saturday a wooden canoe reached El Hierro island with 321 people on board, an emergency services spokeswoman told AFP. There were 280 on October 3, the previous record for migrants arriving in the Canaries in a single boat. Public TV channel TVE showed images of the colorful boat’s arrival at the port on Saturday, crowded with smiling and waving migrants around them. According to the latest figures from the Spanish Interior Ministry, the archipelago received 23,537 migrants between January 1 and October 15, almost 80% more than over the same period last year.
During the first two weeks of October, 8,561 migrants arrived, a record figure according to Spanish media, since a previous migration crisis in 2006. This “resurgence” of arrivals is linked to “the destabilization in the Sahel”, estimated the Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska during a visit to the Canary Islands this week. The migration route passing through the Canaries has been very busy in recent years due to the tightening of controls in the Mediterranean Sea.