Spain rescues 340 people at sea en route to the Canary Islands

In the past few hours, Spanish maritime authorities have rescued 340 people, including 59 minors, who were traveling on four boats to Fuerteventura, Tenerife and El Hierro.

One of the boats carrying 96 sub-Saharan people, including 36 children, arrived on Wednesday evening at the port of Los Cristianos in southern Tenerife, where medical attention was to be provided to three passengers.

Later, 80 sub-Saharan men were landed at the Gran Tarajal pier, south of Fuerteventura.

Early in the morning, a third boat carrying 90 sub-Saharan people (67 men, one woman and 22 minors) was discovered less than 20 kilometers south of Punta Rasca, a police spokesman said. maritime Spanish authorities.

The fourth boat appeared at around 4am along with 74 other sub-Saharan people (69 men, four women and one minor) and landed at La Restinga, south of El Hierro, after being discovered at 15 kilometers south of this city.

More than 23,500 migrants have arrived this year on the coast of Spain’s Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, a number surpassed only by 2006, according to Spanish government data released this week.

From January 1 to October 15, 23,537 people arrived in the Canary Islands on illegal boats, up from 31,678 in all of 2006, the highest figure to date.

Thus, according to data from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, 2023 will be the second year with the highest number of illegal arrivals, while the third will be 2020 (23,271).

In the first half of October alone, Spanish authorities registered the arrival of 8,561 people in the archipelago, which is 79% more than in the same period last year.

Spain is one of the European countries that processes the largest number of entries of illegal migrants into Europe through the Mediterranean coast and the Canary and Balearic archipelagos.