Four migrants were found dead on arrival when a boat carrying 47 migrants landed in Tenerife at dawn, Spanish coast guards said Tuesday. Three others were hospitalized with burns and other injuries.
Nearly 2,200 migrants died trying to reach Spain by sea this year, most on their way to the Canary Islands. The migrant rights group Caminando Fronteras said a reduction in rescue services was partly to blame.
18-year-old Babacar is one of more than 8,000 African migrants who made his way to the Canary Islands archipelago in November 2020. When InfoMigrants spoke to him, Babacar had just been taken in by a Canary Islands resident who decided to help him.
In recent months, thousands of migrants have been taken in by hotels on Spain's Canary Islands. This has caused tension in the islands' vital tourist industry, which was hit hard by the coronavirus crisis. It remains unclear if the migrants' presence will hurt the popularity of the holiday destination at all -- but xenophobia is on the rise.
On the Canary Islands, the new wave of migrant arrivals is becoming a real challenge for the archipelago's long-standing culture of hospitality. The islands have been hit hard by the economic crisis that followed the COVID-19 pandemic, and is now facing the biggest migrant influx since 2006.
The makeshift tent camp on a pier in Arguineguín, which was used to process and accommodate migrants who tried to reach the Canary Islands, was cleared by authorities on Sunday after being used for three months. In November alone, more than 8,000 people arrived on the Spanish Atlantic archipelago. Meanwhile, 68 migrants arrived on Gran Canaria today on two small boats.
At least eight people have died and searches are continuing for at least one person believed to be missing after a boat capsized and sank off the Spanish Canary Islands on Tuesday evening.
The Spanish foreign minister met with her counterpart in Senegal on Sunday to talk about how the two countries can increase measures to deter potential migrants attempting to make the 1,500 kilometer Atlantic crossing from West Africa to the Canary Islands.
The Spanish Constitutional Court, the country's highest court, has announced that it would back fast deportations of migrants who attempt to enter Spain’s north African enclaves Ceuta and Melilla.
Sarah Bettache is 27 years old and lives in France. When she heard that her younger brother Ahmed had made it over the Atlantic from Morocco and arrived safely on the Canary Islands, she set off to find him on Gran Canaria.
The Spanish authorities have set up a second temporary camp on the island of Gran Canaria after a first temporary structure on a pier in the south-west of the island quickly became overcrowded.
A boat carrying mainly Senegalese migrants washed up in the Cape Verde archipelago off West Africa on Sunday night after being adrift at sea for several days. Several hundred more migrants also arrived in the Canary Islands.