Spain has started the year becoming the main access point to Europe in an irregular manner. In January, all the records for immigrant arrivals since records began have been shattered, because the Canary Islands route continues to increase the numbers: 7,270 people arrived in the archipelago during the first month of the year, which represents an increase of 1,184% compared to 2023. In this same period, 2,268 have landed in Italy: three times less than on the islands.
A new splash of cold water for the Government’s immigration policy, which relies the vast majority of its efforts on cooperation with third countries. The arrivals of boats from Mauritania and canoes from Senegal do not stop, despite efforts to stop departures at origin. The highest record during a month of January was marked in 2022, when relations with Morocco were broken. That year, 3,194 people arrived in the first month. Some stratospheric figures at that time: in 2017 13 people arrived, in 2018 20 arrived, in 2019 there were 40… This year 110 boats have already arrived in the Canary Islands compared to 14 last year.
Iñigo Vela, head of the Red Cross Emergency Unit, explains in a telephone conversation that in recent weeks they are noticing that the cayucos are less full than during the peaks of last fall. On October 21, a boat with 320 people arrived in El Hierro, the boat with the largest number of migrants since 1994. However, it is a flow – the deadliest in the world – that does not subside.
The head of the NGO’s Emergency Department denies that more women and children are arriving than in previous months, since they have not been forced to change rescue devices. The percentages, he assures, remain the same: 96.4% of men compared to 3.6% of women in the last month. As for nationalities, many more sub-Saharans than Maghrebs continue to arrive in the archipelago due to Moroccan control.
Vela predicts – although the statistics are there to be broken, he warns – that February is usually a month with fewer arrivals in the historical series. A trend that continues in March and April, to rise again in May due to the good weather and optimal navigability.
In the general balance sheet, made public yesterday by the Ministry of the Interior, it is stated that a total of 8,067 immigrants arrived in Spain irregularly through any of the routes, 6,775 more than in the same period of 2023, when 1,292 people entered the country. . Landings on the peninsula and the Balearic Islands remain at the same level as last year. Yesterday the Civil Guard intercepted two boats with about 35 people arriving in El Ejido (Almería).
What does remain practically sealed are the fences of Ceuta and Melilla. The tight police control that Morocco exercises in the vicinity continues to prevent massive jumps in autonomous cities. Only three people have managed to access in January through Melilla – where the tragic jump occurred in the summer of 2022 – and less than a hundred migrants have achieved it through the Ceuta border crossing.