Migration Crisis: More than 30,000 People Have Arrived Irregulary to Spain by the Sea of Canary Islands
Ship of Rescue, in the Canary Coast, Sept 2024 Photo: @thetimes
October 1, 2024 Hour: 11:57 am
The irregular arrival of migrants by sea to the Spanish islands of the Canary Islands (Atlantic) has risen in the last fortnight, reaching 4,050 people, bringing the number to 30,808 since the beginning of the year, according to official data published on Tuesday.
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September ended with 5,284 immigrants arriving on precarious boats from the African continent, the month with the most entries of 2024 so far after January (7,270).
According to the Ministry of the Interior, between January and September last year arrived in the Canary Islands more than twice as many migrants as in the same period of 2023, a year that ended with about 40,000 arrivals.
Before the data were known, the president of the Canary Islands regional government, Fernando Clavijo, said that if the projection continues, the islands could beat a new record and reach 50,000 irregular entries in all 2024.
Migratory pressure increased sharply in the Canary Islands in 2020, when the pandemic broke out and had serious health and socio-economic consequences.
Poverty, drought, war and other conflicts push thousands of people to risk their lives on crowded barges.
They set off for the Spanish archipelago in the hope of reaching Europe, but the fate is often uncertain. The United Nations Migration Organisation (IOM) estimates that at least 4,755 people have lost their lives in the Atlantic since 2014 when they sailed to the Canary Islands, although NGOs estimate that many more.
Last Saturday, one of these barges overturned on the island of El Hierro, resulting in 54 missing persons and nine bodies recovered from the sea.
The migration emergency has moved to the Canary Islands from Lampedusa (southern Italy), where arrivals have slowed down thanks to collaboration with several countries in North Africa, according to the Italian government.
Throughout Spain, arrived in an irregular way in the year 42,231 people, almost 60% more than in the same months of 2023, when there were 26,540 entries. Most (40,076) arrived by sea on makeshift boats.
Autor: OSG
Fuente: DW-Africanews
