Madrid (Agencies)
Spanish rescue ships announced yesterday that they had picked up about 500 migrants coming from Africa near the Canary Islands last night.
The Spanish Maritime Rescue Service reported, via the X platform, that more than 300 people were transferred aboard the search and rescue vessel “Guardamar Cayubi” and disembarked in the coastal city of La Restinga at the southern tip of the island of “El Yro”.
Meanwhile, 4 other ships were sent to rescue the remaining people, and take them to the islands of La Gomera and Lanzarote, which are part of the Canary Islands.
In the past few days, hundreds of migrants have arrived in the Spanish archipelago off the west coast of Africa on relatively seaworthy wooden boats.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, approximately 27,000 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands from Africa between January and mid-September.
In this context, a report issued by the European Union’s statistics office “Eurostat” yesterday showed that asylum applications submitted to European Union countries declined for the first time last June, and most of the applications came from people coming from Syria, Venezuela and Afghanistan.
Eurostat said 70,375 first-time asylum applications were received from people coming from countries outside the European Union to the bloc, representing a 17 percent decrease compared to June 2023.
Syrians continued to make up the largest proportion of applications at 12 percent in June, followed by Venezuelans at 9 percent and Afghans at 8 percent.
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