2023-10-23 12:57:01
Nearly 1,500 African migrants have arrived on the coasts of the Canary Islands since Saturday, notably aboard a boat which carried a record number of 321 people, the rescue services of the Spanish archipelago announced on Sunday October 22 off the coast of Morocco.
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In total, 1,427 migrants reached the islands in different precarious boats between the night of Friday and Saturday and the morning of Sunday, emergency services announced on the social network X (formerly Twitter). Migrant arrivals have been increasing in recent weeks.
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321 people on a wooden canoe
The migrants come from sub-Saharan Africa, a spokesperson for the emergency services told AFP. On Saturday, a wooden canoe reached El Hierro island with 321 people on board, an emergency services spokeswoman told AFP.
The previous record for the number of passengers on a single boat arriving in the Canaries was 280 on October 3.
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Public TV channel TVE showed images of the colorful boat’s arrival at the port on Saturday, crowded with smiling and waving migrants around them.
This weekend more than 1,000 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands aboard nine cayucos.
Maritime Rescue and the Red Cross are on alert for possible new arrivals. pic.twitter.com/O0XFvsbfyO
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— TVE News (@telediario_tve) October 22, 2023
Twitter – TVE News News on Twitter / X
Nearly 80% more arrivals than last year
According to the latest figures from the Spanish Interior Ministry, the archipelago received 23,537 migrants between January 1 and October 15, almost 80% more than during the same period last year. During the first two weeks of October, 8,561 migrants arrived, a record number according to Spanish media since a previous migration crisis in 2006.
This “resurgence” arrivals is linked to “destabilization in the Sahel”said the Spanish Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska during a visit to the Canaries this week.
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The migration route through the Canaries has been very busy in recent years due to the tightening of controls in the Mediterranean Sea. But shipwrecks are frequent during these long and dangerous crossings aboard small boats from Morocco or Western Sahara, about a hundred kilometers away, but also, further south, from Mauritania, Senegal and even Gambia. , about a thousand kilometers away.
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