In a stark reminder of the human cost of global inequality, approximately 770 migrants, including 73 women and 32 children, were rescued from ten precarious vessels in the waters off El Hierro and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands over the past 24 hours. These latest rescues underscore the desperate conditions forcing individuals to undertake perilous journeys across the Atlantic.

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The largest group was found aboard a single cayuco – a basic, often unseaworthy craft – located about 37 kilometers off the coast of El Hierro. Salvage teams found 143 people of Sub-Saharan origin crammed on board, including 74 men, 47 women, and 22 minors, four of whom were infants.

This human cargo, packed onto fragile vessels, exposes the brutal reality of a world where individuals are forced to risk everything to escape destitution and conflict stemming from neo-colonial exploitation and the effects of climate change.

In the early hours of Tuesday, rescue teams were activated to aid a dinghy requesting assistance approximately 66 kilometers off Lanzarote, rescuing 73 occupants, including one woman. Returning to port, rescuers found a second dinghy carrying 68 additional people, three Sub-Saharan men and 65 from the Maghreb, including three women and two minors.

By Tuesday morning, another cayuco with 75 Sub-Saharan migrants, two women among them, was located off El Hierro. Another cayuco with an identical number of passengers was also rescued; this one included eight women and three minors.

Three other cayuco were discovered later in the afternoon about 90 to 120 kilometers south of El Hierro. One boat carried 63 males; another was carrying 88 individuals, ten women and two children. A third had 70 people with no further details available.

The rescue operations concluded off Lanzarote, where the remaining survivors from two dinghies were brought to safety, one carrying 51 men and the other carrying 58 men, two women and two children.

These mass rescues are not isolated incidents; they are a symptom of a larger global crisis. Spain narrowly missed its record of irregular migrant arrivals in 2023, with 63,970 arrivals reported. A staggering 73.2 percent, representing 46,843 entries, arrived through the perilous Canary Route.

This is an increase of 17.4 percent compared to the previous year, highlighting the intensification of the root causes driving migration, including Western-backed resource extraction, imperialist intervention, and climate catastrophe.

The NGO Caminando Fronteras, which tracks migrant deaths at sea, reported that over 10,457 individuals lost their lives trying to reach Spanish shores in 2023 – an average of 30 people per day. The vast majority of these tragic deaths (9,757) occurred on the Atlantic route to the Canary Islands. These staggering figures are a damning indictment of the current world order and its border regimes that put profit and national sovereignty above the sanctity of human life.

The current situation requires more than humanitarian rescues, which while necessary, cannot address the root causes of forced migration. The dismantling of neo-colonial structures, the redistribution of wealth, and climate justice are crucial to addressing this crisis of human mobility. The responsibility rests not just on Spain or the EU, but on the international community to radically change the systems that create desperation and force these precarious journeys.

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