More than 17,000 illegal migrants arrived in the Spanish Canary Islands over the holiday period, with more than 500 rescued from the sea, DPA reported, citing state television Ere Te Uve E, BTA reported.
In 2024, more than 45,000 people reached the archipelago, which is located about 100 kilometers from the coast of North Africa, the newspaper reported. “Mundo“, citing information from local authorities.
The newspaper said that 28 boats arrived on the islands of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and El Hierro in the four days from Tuesday to Saturday, with the number of countries of origin increasing amid intensifying conflicts in Africa.
The Spanish humanitarian organization “Caminando Fronteras“ said that more and more boats were leaving from the coast of Mauritania. The organization estimates that more than 9,700 people, many of them children and young people, have died on this route.
The local government of the Canary Islands believes it is overwhelmed by the number of arrivals and has increasingly criticized the central government in Madrid for not doing enough to provide food for the arrivals or to redistribute them to other Spanish regions.
The president of the Canary Islands government, Fernando Clavijo, recently called on the European Commissioner for Migration, Magnus Brunner, to prioritize the islands for EU funding and for the full implementation of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum. He also invited Brunner to familiarize himself with the situation on the ground.
The number of refugees worldwide in the last year reached 122 million, while in 2023 they were 117.4 million, a German organization that is a partner of the UN Refugee Agency reported, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
The Bonn-based organization "UN - Refugee Aid" (UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe) described these numbers as "shocking" and stressed that these are people who hope to receive protection, security and a future.
"Our common task is to offer protection and a future to these people," said the head of the organization, Peter Ruhenstroth-Bauer. He pointed out that the civil war in Sudan, which broke out in April 2023, is one of the main factors for the large number of refugees this year. The fighting in the African country has forced more than 11.8 million people to flee their homes. The crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar also contributed to the increase in displacement in 2024.
The military conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon have additionally caused the forced displacement of more than 1.7 million people, Ruhenstroth-Bauer added.