ARCHIVED - Canary islands bear the brunt of migratory flow as Spain records a 15 per cent increase in arrivals

The number of people crossing illegally from Africa to the Canaries doubled in the first quarter of 2020

Spain’s Ministry of the Interior published figures on Monday relating to the number of unauthorized migrants known to have reached the country during the first quarter of the year, revealing that the total of 6,496 shows a 15.6 per cent increase over the figure for the equivalent period in 2020.

This increase is due above all to the sharp rise in the number of people crossing from northern Africa to the Canary Islands, where between 1^st January and 31^st March 3,436 people were intercepted either just before or shortly after they landed on the coasts of the islands. This figure is more than double the number recorded in the first quarter of last year, and reflects the current preference of the Atlantic route into Spain and the EU over the shorter but more heavily policed western Mediterranean crossing.

It also appears to demonstrate that the fall in migrant numbers on the Canaries route which had been observed since last September may be nothing more than a “blip” rather than a sign that the flow of Africans crossing to the islands is abating, and the relatively low figures for February (155 arrivals in the first half of the month and 109 in the second fortnight) were more than compensated for by the 856 people who reached the Canaries during the second half of March.

Meanwhile, the number of migrants intercepted as they made their way to mainland Spain and the Balearics shows an 8.4 per cent year-on-year decrease to 2,852, while in the north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla the figures are 109 and 265 respectively, as opposed to 265 and 1,000 in the first three months of 2020.