Between 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday night and the early hours of Wednesday morning, four canoes from Mauritania that had been crossing the ocean for several days arrived at the La Restinga dock, in ; one of them by his own means and the other three assisted by Maritime Rescue. There were 284 people on board (including at least 15 minors). The trip ended with six deaths. Six new deaths in , where at least 700 people have died this year trying to set foot on European soil, according to United Nations agencies monitoring the situation.
The first of the four boats arrived in La Restinga assisted by Salvamar Adhara at 9:18 p.m. on Tuesday with 67 people on board: 46 men, nine women and 12 minors from Mali, Egypt, Senegal and Guinea Bissau. The second canoe arrived at 11:10 p.m., after the Adhara rescued it when it was 15 kilometers from El Hierro. There were 74 people on board from Mali, Senegal and Ivory Coast: 69 men, three women and two children. Those two canoes had left Mauritania four days ago. The third barge, which had been traveling for five days, landed on its own on the westernmost island of the Canary Islands at 00:15 this Wednesday, with 81 men from Mali, Senegal, Bangladesh and Gambia. Four of them had died on the trip and another died during disembarkation. The fourth cayuco was helped by the Guardamar Polimnia when it was sailing about 93 kilometers from El Hierro and one of its 62 occupants (from Mali, Gambia, Mauritania and Senegal) arrived already deceased. There were 53 men, eight women and one minor, and they had been sailing for three days since they left the Mauritanian capital.
Of the immigrants disembarked in La Restinga, 11 had to be transferred to the Nuestra Señora de los Reyes Insular Hospital, a volume of wounded sufficient to revolutionize modest and overflowing facilities. One of the patients, a very young boy, arrived with severe hypothermia and upon disembarking had to be intubated in the medical ambulance. “The situation that was experienced was one of desperation, it was pain, it was helplessness,” says a health source. “We said ‘we can’t die, we can’t die.’ We are fed up with people dying. “It’s too much,” he adds.
The figure of 700 people killed trying to reach the Canary Islands this year responds to a conservative estimate. It emerges from the data provided by the IOM Missing Migrants project and by UNHCR. But the NGO Caminando Fronteras spoke of 4,808 deaths on that same route at the end of the first half of this year.
From January 1 to November 30, 2024, 41,425 immigrants have arrived in the Canary Islands by sea, which represents 17% more than in the same period last year. However, the level of arrivals has been decreasing compared to the beginning of the year when they were skyrocketing. From January to March, the increase compared to the previous year exceeded 500%, according to Interior data.
Clavijo trust that the deaths “will stir consciences”
The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has stated that he hopes that today’s six new deaths on the Canary Islands route will “raise consciences” in view of the Conference of Presidents that will be held on Friday, and in which it will be addressed for distribution throughout the Peninsula to thousands of unaccompanied foreign minors. In statements to journalists in La Laguna (Tenerife), Clavijo (Canarian Coalition) said that on Friday he will present the situation in the archipelago with the aim of trying to close an agreement that could alleviate the reception network, reduce “the tension” and change a situation “that is absolutely undeserved and unfair,” reports Efe.
Clavijo has said he feels frustration and anger at the “indifference” he perceives in the national parties to the drama that migrants are experiencing in the Canary Islands. “All tragedies are obviously tragedies, but the reality is that throughout 2024, with six today, we are talking about 621 people who have lost their lives trying to reach our shores, not counting the missing people that the Atlantic has swallowed,” he stated. Asked about the “plan b” that he announced the day before in the Canary Islands Parliament, where he said that he will promote an initiative in Congress that could have the support of Junts, Clavijo has indicated that the regional legal services are working on drafting that plan. text and that this would allow an “extraordinary distribution of foreign minors in national territory.”
“We continue to insist: the Government of Spain has at its disposal the tools to be able, from the point of view of solidarity established in article 2 of the Constitution, to establish the distribution of these children throughout the national territory. And it has powers to provide resources and assume the coordination of the emergency,” said the Canary Islands president. The leader has pointed out that the path that he initially promoted, the modification of article 35 of the Immigration Law, involved creating an automatic mechanism for the assignment of these minors by the different communities when they arrive on the Canary Islands, and that, if in the end This proposal does not go ahead “it is not because it is not possible but because the main parties do not want that article to be modified.” Then, he insisted, he will have to explore other formulas to “seek the necessary support.” “And we are doing it from the Government of the Canary Islands,” he stressed.
“I think we are doing it unfairly because it is not our responsibility, but in the end we have to do something, and we would look for the possibility of an extraordinary cast of minors that would alleviate the tense situation we have at the moment,” Fernando Clavijo summarized. He also recalled that the NGOs have conveyed to the Canary Islands Executive the saturation of the shelters, some of them with more than 300 minors, and that it is necessary to “relieve the tension.”
Asked if Junts has confirmed its support for this new initiative, Clavijo indicated that “they are open” to the decree that the legal services of the autonomous community are preparing. “The decree will have to be approved by the Government of Spain, but well, what we are trying to do is seek that support in the Congress of Deputies. Is it our obligation? No, it is not our obligation (…) but in the face of inactivity we cannot be impassive,” he concluded. The president of the islands has added that he is in talks with both Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the PP, and with the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, to achieve approval at the Conference of Presidents, although he has indicated that “It is very difficult for him to be optimistic” because he does not see will “on either side.”
