More than 1,000 migrants rescued off Spain's Canary Islands this weekend

OVIEDO, Spain

Spanish authorities rescued more than 1,000 people from the waters around the Canary Islands this weekend, according to data from local emergency services published Sunday afternoon.

They had all taken the dangerous journey from the coast of North Africa, and several, including women and children, had to be hospitalized.

The huge number of arrivals continues a pattern of a growing number of arrivals all summer. In August, 2,931 migrants made the journey — nearly three times as many in the same month last year.

On Monday, 630 people arrived in a single day, marking the highest number in one day since 2020.

Local journalist Txema Santana highlighted that five boats carrying around 100 people arrived on the island of El Hierro this weekend. He tweeted that it’s an “unprecedented” number for the island with a population of just over 11,000.

This year, nearly 22,000 migrants had arrived in Spain irregularly by sea by the end of August — more than in all of 2022, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry.

The Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR) said 77 people died trying to reach Spain in August alone. CEAR slams the lack of legal channels for refugees trying to arrive in the EU as the cause of “enormous amounts of suffering and thousands of disappearances.”

According to the Walking Borders organization, an estimated 778 people died en route to the Canary Islands in the first half of the year.