Two hundred and eighty migrants, all alive, arrived on Tuesday, October 3, aboard a single boat on an island in the Spanish Canary archipelago, Agence France-Presse reported (AFP ), sea rescue. Of these people, 278 were men and ten were minors, they said. This is the largest number of passengers ever to arrive on a single boat.
The migrants, of “sub-Saharan” origin according to sea rescuers, were taken care of upon their arrival when their boat was close to the port of La Restinga, on the island of El Hierro.
On Tuesday alone, El Hierro saw half a thousand arrivals, a rare figure for this small island, the westernmost of the Canaries. Emergency services report another boat rescued with 127 people on board, as well as another boat with 79 migrants.
An increase of almost 20% in the arrival of migrants in one year
Spain, and particularly the Canary Islands archipelago off the African coast, is one of the main entry points for illegal migrants into Europe. The Canaries saw 14,976 migrants arrive between January 1 and September 30, an increase of 19.8% compared to the same period in 2022, according to the latest figures from the Spanish Interior Ministry.
In recent years, the migratory route to the Canaries has been particularly busy due to the tightening of controls in the Mediterranean. Shipwrecks are frequent there, the crossing being particularly dangerous.
NGOs regularly report deadly shipwrecks – the unofficial toll of which, according to them, amounts to dozens, if not hundreds of deaths – in Moroccan, Spanish or international waters. Since the start of 2023, 140 migrants have died or disappeared during this crossing, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) received in early September.
The Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, which, unlike the IOM, relies on emergency calls with illegal immigrants at sea or their relatives, estimates that 778 migrants died or disappeared on this migratory route in the first half of the year. .
