Canary Islands: 20024 extra migrants than ever earlier than | EUROtoday

There was a dramatic scene on the seaside at Las Galletas within the south of Tenerife on New Year’s Day: Red Cross members caring for exhausted migrants whereas vacationers lay on the seaside and watched the scene. The crossing exacted a excessive worth: two folks didn’t survive the harmful journey.

In the 12 months that simply ended, 46,843 irregular migrants arrived on the Canary Islands – greater than ever earlier than. According to the figures revealed by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior on Thursday, the earlier excessive from the earlier 12 months of 39,910 was clearly exceeded. In 2024, arrivals within the Canary Islands as soon as once more made up the clear majority of the whole of 63,970 irregular arrivals of migrants in Spain.

The highest quantity in all of Spain was reached in 2018, when 64,298 irregular migrants arrived within the nation. Spain has lately come to the fore within the EU migration disaster: Stricter controls within the Mediterranean are regularly encouraging increasingly more migrants to undertake the harmful journey from West Africa throughout a piece of the Atlantic Ocean to the Canary Islands through the so-called Atlantic route.

Increase over the Atlantic route by 19 %

While the variety of irregular entries into the complete EU fell by round 40 % by the top of November 2024, in line with the EU Border Protection Agency, crossings through the Atlantic route rose by 19 %. In explicit, folks from Mali, Senegal and Morocco made the crossing by boat.

The Atlantic route is extraordinarily harmful: According to a report by the non-governmental group Caminando Fronteras, a minimum of 10,457 migrants died or disappeared on the crossing to Spain between the start of 2024 and December fifth. This is a rise of fifty % in comparison with the earlier 12 months and the best worth since counting started in 2007.