MADRID (AP) — The deployment of two Spanish surveillance aircraft to monitor migrant boats heading the treacherous route from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands has allowed authorities to stop 59 canoes from Senegal and Gambia carrying about 7,200 migrants in the last two months. a senior official said on Friday.
The boats stopped represented about half of what officials believed would otherwise have headed for the Canary Islands off northwest Africa during that period, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlasca said.
The archipelago has witnessed a record number of irregular migrant arrivals this year.
Grande-Marlaska told reporters during a visit to the archipelago that “we have saved lives, because you know the Canary Islands route is a very dangerous route.” Spotting planes are in Senegal and the Canary Islands, he said.
Grande-Marlaska held talks on the islands with European Union Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson amid mainland Europe’s efforts to help Spain handle a record number of migrants to the Canary Islands this year.
Johansson said that this year more than 36,000 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands by sea, more than 4,000 of them unaccompanied minors.
This exceeded the immigration numbers of 2006, the last wave of migrants to the archipelago, when 31,678 migrants landed.
Most of the migrants heading to the Canary Islands come from Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco, officials say.
Their journey is one of the longest and deadliest in Europe. At least 512 people have died so far this year, according to the International Organization for Migration, although the number is believed to be much higher.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albarez began a two-day trip to Senegal and Mauritania on Friday to discuss the Canary Islands’ migration situation with local authorities.
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