Spain: nearly 2,000 migrant arrivals in the Canaries in one weekend

Migrants rescued in October in the Canary Islands (illustrative image).

DESIREE MARTIN / AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

It's a record.

This weekend, there were a total of 2,000 arrivals of migrants from the coasts of Africa, divided into 40 makeshift boats, very often fishing boats.

Some 115 people were also recovered from the sea, and one person died on the Hierro Island side.

These arrivals are fueling local tensions.

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"

", is how one of the political leaders of the Canary Islands archipelago called the situation.

Over the weekend, a record was broken in the arrivals of desperate migrants.

But the phenomenon increased during the month of October, explains our correspondent in Madrid,

.

In total, officially nearly 5,500 people, mostly Maghrebians, Mauritanians or Senegalese, arrived recently, mainly because their economic situation worsened with the Covid-19 pandemic in their countries.

As a result, the archipelago's reception capacity is exceeded, the authorities say they are overwhelmed.

Activados por @ 112canarias por llegada de patera con migantes al puerto de Playa de Santiago in # Alajeró.

Todos en buen estado de salud, salvo complicaciones.

Intervienen también @salvamentogob, @ guardiacivil, # SUC, personal Centro de Salud, @CruzRojaProvTfe y @PuertosCanarios.

pic.twitter.com/Ta0rVTwHvs

  AV Protección Civil La Gomera (@PC_LAGOMERA) November 7, 2020

Canarians demand solutions

Authorities who had to accommodate the majority of these migrants in hotel complexes which are no longer occupied by foreign tourists, especially British, because of the Covid-19.

But a thousand migrants were still placed in a camp in the port of Argineguin, on the island of Gran Canaria.

This installation in the port provokes the anger of the local fishermen and more generally of many inhabitants, who consider that the migrants are too numerous.

Protest demonstrations have taken place, like the previous weekend, to demand that regional and national governments find solutions.

A new migration route

The Spanish archipelago located off the north-western coast of Africa has seen an explosion in the arrivals of illegal migrants: more than 11,000 since the start of the year according to the Interior Ministry, or seven times more than over the same period in 2019.

For several months, African migrants have resumed the route of the Canaries in preference to the Mediterranean due to border control agreements concluded with

, Turkey and

.

►Also read: The Canary Islands, a new “prison” for migrants from Europe

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