The arrival of boats with migrants to the Canary Islands has accelerated in recent weeks. If in the first five months of the year the islands had received 4,406 migrants, according to Interior data, only in the first two weeks of June did they arrive 1.508 personas. And the figures for the second fortnight, not yet available, will be similar and even higher, judging by the continuous arrivals on the islands in recent days. The total in June will exceed 3,000, which means at least 100 migrants every day.
“Compared to June 2022, we have noticed a considerable increase in arrivals on all the islands, especially at the end of the month,” confirms the data. Jose Antonio Rodriguez Verona, regional manager of the First Emergency Response for the immigrant population of the Red Cross. Rodríguez Verona draws attention to the fact that many of these boats are canoes. “Canoes have not arrived for a long time and now they are, especially to El Hierro and Tenerife,” he says.
He tells it by phone at noon yesterday Sunday, when they are still attending the port of The Christians, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, to the migrants from the last boat that has landed on the islands, precisely a cayuco. “We have attended some 60 personas, all male. Five have been transferred to health centers. A deceased man was coming, ”reports the situation that the Red Cross has found on board.
The previous day, Helena Malenoan activist from Caminando Fronteras, who usually alerts the emergency services when a boat is in trouble in the middle of the Atlantic, reported through his twitter account that 51 personas who had left Tan Tan -in the southwest of Morocco- for the Canary Islands on June 22, had died in the attempt after eight days adrift. The migrants, including 11 women and three children, came from various African countries, such as Senegal, The Gambia, Ethiopia, Sudan or Sri Lanka and the shipwreck occurred in Moroccan waters. The activist gave an account of four survivors, two of whom had been admitted to Laayoune.
According to statements made by Maleno to Efe, to this day other women remain missing in Atlantic waters. five boats Departures in June from the Moroccan coast, between Tan Tan and Agadir, to the Canary Islands with 266 personas on board, both sub-Saharan and Moroccan.