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San Cristobal de la Laguna / Tenerife (dpa) - Around 1200 migrants and local supporters demonstrated on the Canary Island of Tenerife, which belongs to Spain, for permission to travel to mainland Spain.
The people from Africa who live in camps in the city of San Cristobal de la Laguna in the north of the island called for “freedom” in chants, as the television channel Canarias7 reported on Saturday.
The conditions in the refugee camps are unbearable, the broadcaster quoted participants in the rally.
The Spanish government rejects this, however, and only wants to move migrants who need special care from the camps on the islands to better accommodation on the mainland.
For the thousands of migrants on the islands, the situation is very difficult and also leads to anger among the local population, wrote the newspaper «El País».
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The number of people who dare to make the dangerous crossing from Africa across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands rose sharply last year.
According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, a good 23,000 migrants reached the archipelago off the west coast of North Africa in 2020.
The trend continued this year as well.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 2,300 people have arrived on the islands in small wooden boats.
It is not known how many people died at sea.
The UNHCR estimates more than 400 fatalities in the past year.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210306-99-717363 / 2
UNHCR migrant numbers for the Canary Islands, as of February 28, 2021