Pope Francis confirmed this Friday that he is considering traveling to the Canary Islands due to the migration crisis the islands are experiencing and to show his "closeness to the rulers and the people", in the press conference on board the plane returning from his tour of Asia and Oceania.
"I am thinking a bit about this, about going to the Canary Islands because there is the situation with the migrants who arrive from the sea and I would like to be close to the rulers and the people of the Canary Islands," the Pope said when asked about a possible visit to the islands, for example as a stopover on a hypothetical trip to Argentina.
One of the options that was being considered was that the visit to the Canary Islands would be a stopover on his trip to his country, since the pontiff himself, 87, has confirmed that he wants to travel to Argentina, although today it became more likely that if he goes to the archipelago it will be a unique trip.
The trip to Argentina "is something that has not been decided," Francisco assured, before adding: "I would like to go. It is my people, but it has not been decided, there are several things to resolve first," thus distancing the possibility of the trip.
A total of 6,267 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands during the months of July and August and with these arrival figures this summer is a record since there are statistics and differ significantly in the number of the last five years in the same period.
Until September, 25,524 people have arrived on the Canary Islands coasts, which represents an increase of 123% compared to the same period in 2023.
The president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Luis Argüello, recently pointed out that if Pope Francis finally visited Spain, "by intuition" the chosen place could be the Canary Islands, to learn about the situation of the hundreds of immigrants who arrive every month to its coasts from Africa.
The possibility of Francisco traveling to the Canary Islands has been on the table since last January 22, when the Canarian president, Fernando Clavijo, confirmed after meeting in the Vatican that the Pope told him that he was "going to think about it" and showed him that he was aware of the humanitarian emergency that is being experienced on the Atlantic Route.
During his pontificate, Pope Francis has demonstrated his attention to migration crises and especially in the flows towards Europe with his visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, the first of the pontificate, and he has also been twice on the Greek island of Lesbos.
With a possible visit to the Canary Islands, Francisco would become the first pontiff to set foot on the archipelago, and it would also be his first trip to Spain
