A record number of migrants and refugees reached the Canary Islands by sea in 2024 | Migration news
Last year, Spain received 63,970 migrants and refugees who arrived via irregular routes, including 46,843 people in the Canary Islands.
At least 46,843 people reached Spain’s Canary Islands in 2024 via the increasingly deadly Atlantic migration route, the country’s interior ministry said.
The European country received 63,970 migrants who arrived via irregular routes last year, the vast majority in the Atlantic archipelago, compared to 56,852 in 2023, the ministry announced on Thursday.
The EU’s border agency Frontex noted that irregular crossings into the bloc fell by 40 percent overall from January to November 2024, but rose by 19 percent on the Atlantic route, with people from Mali, Senegal and Morocco trying to cross.
Years of conflict in the Sahel region, unemployment and the effect of climate change on farming communities are among the reasons why people are trying transition.
The Atlantic route, which includes departure points in Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania and Morocco, is also the deadliest in the world.
Last week, at least 69 people, including 25 Malians, died after a ship heading from West Africa to the Canary Islands capsized off Morocco.
A report last month by the NGO Caminando Fronteras said at least 10,457 migrants died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain by sea from January 1 to December 5, 2024.
Caminando Fronteras added that this was a 50 percent increase from 2023 and the highest number of casualties since records began in 2007, which he attributed to the use of dilapidated boats, dangerous waters and a lack of rescue resources.
Migrant aid group Walking Borders also blamed a lack of action or arbitrary rescues and the criminalization of migrants for the rise in deaths at sea. The aid group accused European governments of “prioritizing immigration control over the right to life”.
