Last year, more than 43,000 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands, a record-breaking figure that exceeds that of 2006, during the so-called ‘Cayuco crisis’.
Around 780 new migrants have arrived in the Canary Islands, local officials in the Spanish archipelago say.
Authorities said the migrants arrived in ten boats on the islands of Lanzarote and El Hierro and included 36 minors and 86 women of sub-Saharan and North African origin.
Salvamento Marítimo, Spain’s sea and rescue agency, said in a post on X that it rescued “84 sub-Saharan people (13 women and 4 minors) from a boat” near El Hierro, and local officials said they found another boat with 61 people on board near the same area in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The first migrant arrivals of the year come after a record year where a total of 63,970 migrants arrived irregularly on Spanish shores, an increase of 12.5% over 2023. More than 43,000 of them landed in the Canary Islands, a figure that far exceeds that of 2006 (31,678), during the so-called “Cayuco crisis”.
According to local media, the arrival of hundreds of migrants in a single day meant that the Lanzarote Emergency Consortium had to offer mattresses to temporarily house the migrants in several tents set up in the port of Arrecife.
The European Union seeks solutions
Last year, European politics took a turn to the right, particularly after the EU elections in June. As such, many EU member states have started to update their migration policies, just as migration also comes at the top of the European Council’s agenda.
In a letter to the EU member states, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen proposed speeding up the return of asylum seekers and opening detention centres in third countries, following the precedent set by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s agreement with Albania.
The president of the European Commission thus aligned herself with the request of 15 Member States to transfer asylum seekers to safe third countries.
Meanwhile, the Spanish government announced last year the opening of an emergency reception centre at Ciudad Real airport to deal with asylum requests from irregular arrivals.
Last week, authorities also urged more humanitarian action on underage migrants as the Canary Islands struggles to cope with the arrivals.
“A humanitarian response for minors is urgent,” Spanish Minister for Territorial Policy Ángel Víctor Torres said last week.
Video editor • Jerry Fisayo-Bambi
