Despite the increased intensity of arrivals of boats to the coasts of Lanzarote in the last two weeks, the island does not exceed or come close to the figures of previous years. According to data provided by the Ministry of the Interior, the Canary Islands have received 62.3% fewer migrants than between January 1 and April 15 of last year and 59.4% fewer boats.
"There are fewer people at risk but they continue to die at sea. As long as there are people at sea, that risk will continue to exist," revealed the migration advisor to the Vice Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands, Txema Santana.
To know how the arrivals of the next fifteen days will affect the data, we will have to wait until the end of the month, when the Interior Ministry provides an update. For the moment, between April 15 and the morning of April 28, nine precarious boats have arrived on the island from the northwest of the African continent. Six of them in the last 48 hours.
Approximately, in the last two weeks, a total of 406 immigrants have reached the lands of Lanzarote, figures that may vary in the data offered later by the Government of Spain.
For the moment, Santana rules out that the anti-immigration policies of the Italian government, led by Giorgia Meloni, influence the Canary Route. The people arriving by boat in recent days come mostly from Senegal and Morocco, two countries of origin that are common in this journey. However, migrants from North Africa are more likely to travel to Italy.
According to the Lanzarote Emergency Coordination Center, with these new arrivals, the arrivals of people and boats registered in April 2022 would have already been exceeded. According to information provided by the Interior Ministry, until April 15, 56 precarious boats had arrived in the Archipelago, in which inflatable boats predominated. This meant, until that day, 82 fewer boats than in the same period last year.
As explained by Txema Santana, one of the leading experts in the Islands on the trends of the Canary Route, among the phenomena that explain this increase in arrivals is the end of Ramadan, "which always has an impact on the route." This celebration is typical of Muslim culture and extends throughout a month dedicated to fasting, prayer and community.
The role of the countries of origin
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Migration, Isabel Castro, assured this past Thursday during the Commission on Labor, Inclusion, Social Security and Migration of the Senate that the decrease in "irregular immigration" in Spain in recent months is not a consequence "solely" of the improvement of relations with Morocco, but is explained from a "more global perspective." In this sense, she highlighted international relations with countries such as Senegal or Algeria, key pieces in the origin of the Route.
Castro also defended that "first attention" centers are being considered in the Archipelago, but that they will not be "centers of deprivation of liberty" and stressed during her speech that these infrastructures will serve to "be prepared" for the arrival of people.
The proximity to the African continent, located less than 100 kilometers from the Canary Islands, makes the Spanish Archipelago one of the destinations for migrants departing from the countries of North and West Africa. The islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are the closest for people taking the Canary Route.
"We are far from situations similar to those of 2020, the circumstances of reception and transfers are far away. Now there are better reception resources and the transfers to the European continent are more agile," stressed Txema Santana.
