23rd January 2025 | News
- The number of recorded irregular arrivals on the Canary Islands reached an all-time record in 2024.
- A new NGO report has revealed that at least 10,457 people died or disappeared trying to reach Spain via maritime routes in 2024.
- The central government and the government of the Canary Islands have reached an agreement regarding the distribution of unaccompanied minors across Spain.
- The government of the Balearic Islands is considering requesting assistance from Frontex to help to prevent irregular arrivals on the archipelago.
The number of recorded irregular arrivals on the Canary Islands reached an all-time record in 2024. According to preliminary data published by the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), there were 46,877 arrivals in 2024. This represented an 18% increase on the previous year and the highest figure since Frontex began collecting data in 2009. In addition, according to a recent report published by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, an additional 3,223 people arrived in the Canary Islands in the first fifteen days of 2025.
A new NGO report has revealed that at least 10,457 people died or disappeared trying to reach Spain via maritime routes in 2024. According to the report by Caminando Fronteras, this represents a 58% increase from the previous year. The report described the Atlantic route as “the most lethal in the world” and revealed that it accounted for 93% of the recorded victims. It also revealed that of the 9,757 victims on the Atlantic route, 6,829 (70%) had departed from Mauritania. “An average of 30 lives have been lost every day because migration politics have been prioritised over human rights,” Caminando Fronteras X posted. More recently, approximately 50 people who were trying to travel by boat from Mauritania to the Canary Islands in the first week of January 2025 are believed to have died in a shipwreck off the coast of Morocco.
The central government and the government of the Canary Islands have reached an agreement regarding the distribution of unaccompanied minors across Spain. On 17 January, Minister of Territorial Policy Ángel Víctor Torres and President of the Canary Islands Fernando Clavijo endorsed a proposal to use state funds to transfer 4,000 unaccompanied minors who had arrived on the Canary Islands and up to 500 others who had arrived in Ceuta to the other autonomous communities. Despite the agreement, questions remain about its implementation. Clavijo appears to favour the use of a royal decree-law in order to speed up the process whereas the central government seems to prefer a legislative proposal given the likelihood of an appeal by the opposition People’s Party.
The government of the Balearic Islands is considering requesting assistance from Frontex to help to prevent irregular arrivals on the archipelago. According to the Voz de Ibiza newspaper, 5,924 people arrived on the Balearic Islands in 2024; a 160% increase from the previous year. Speaking to journalists on 10 January, the Balearic Islands government’s spokesperson, Antoni Costa, said: “The European Commission has long offered the Government of Spain help in this regard with the participation of Frontex and it has rejected it. If the Central Government is unable to make decisions and tackle the matter, we will ask for help from Frontex to plant themselves here and control the borders of the Balearic Islands”.
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