The flow of arrivals does not stop on the migratory route to the Canary Islands.
The Maritime Rescue personnel rescued 193 immigrants (including 23 women and nine children) who were traveling aboard three pneumatic boats and a canoe at dawn this Thursday in the waters of Gran Canaria and Lanzarote, according to sources from the rescue agency. , the Red Cross and the emergency service 112. These arrivals are added to those of another 185 people who had been rescued during the previous morning, according to data from the Red Cross.
In total, 378 rescued in the ocean in two days.
The Salvamar
Macondo
docked at 5:00 a.m. this Thursday at the Arguineguín pier (southwest of Gran Canaria) with a group of 44 sub-Saharan men who had been located aboard a canoe about eight kilometers from the coast.
At the same time, the Guardamar Calliope
sailed back to the same port
.
The boat was carrying 37 men, six women and three sub-Saharan minors who had been sighted aboard a Zodiac by the Sasemar 103 rescue plane 170 kilometers south east of Gran Canaria, in the area of Cabo Bojador (Sahara).
In parallel, the Guardamar
Polimnia
assisted two inflatable boats in the surroundings of Lanzarote, the first of them sighted by a merchant ship after midnight.
In that zodiac, 46 people of sub-Saharan origin were traveling: 35 men, eight women and three minors.
That rescue was completed around 2:45 am and, on its return to the port of Arrecife (Lanzarote), the rescue ship detected a second inflatable boat with 57 occupants, mostly of sub-Saharan origin.
These arrivals are added to those registered during the previous morning, when 189 people traveling in three small boats were rescued by Maritime Rescue and transferred to the islands of Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Tenerife, respectively.
Diplomatic relations
Despite this flow of arrivals, the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, highlighted last Tuesday after meeting with his Moroccan counterpart, Naser Burita, that Spain has noted "a significant decrease" in the arrival of immigrants to the Canary Islands since both countries They resumed relationships.
In his statement to the media after the meeting, which lasted about an hour, Albares congratulated the security forces of the two countries for their fight against immigration, and stated that migrants arriving in the Canary Islands were reduced by 70% in March and April compared to January and February this year.
Between January 1 and April 30, in any case, 6,624 people have arrived in the Canary Islands by sea, 50% more than in the same period of the previous year, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
The UNHCR representative in Spain, Sophie Muller, warned this Wednesday that the migratory mafias are organizing routes "with more risks" due to the increase in controls on the coasts by the countries of origin and transit and in collaboration with Spain.
The representative explained that the organization is "in the observation phase" to check if the slowdown in the departure of boats is consolidated after the new diplomatic agreements between Spain and Morocco, although she pointed out that the "rising season" of the small boats is now beginning and cayucos because the state of the sea improves and they are "waiting" for the trends to consolidate.
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