MMore than 1,400 migrants from Africa reached the shores of the Canary Islands over the weekend. As the rescue services of the Spanish archipelago announced on Sunday evening, a total of 1,457 people arrived on the islands in several boats between Friday evening and Sunday. According to a spokesman, they came from sub-Saharan countries.
Among other things, a wooden boat with 321 people on board landed on the island of El Hierro on Saturday, another spokeswoman for the emergency services told the AFP news agency. The public television broadcaster TVE showed images of the arrival of the boat crowded with waving people in the harbor. Never before had so many people been transported across the sea to the Canary Islands by a single boat.
According to the latest figures from the Spanish Interior Ministry, 23,537 migrants reached the archipelago off the west coast of North Africa between January 1st and October 15th. That is 80 percent more than in the same period last year. In the first two weeks of October, 8,561 migrants came to 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 “resurge” in migrant numbers to a “destabilization of the Sahel region.” As a result of increased controls in the Mediterranean, the migration route via the Canary Islands has become more important in recent years, although it is long and dangerous.
#Canary #Islands #report #arrival #migrants