The Canarian president demands “true information” and warns of the increase in boats due to the “instability” of Senegal
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has demanded this Tuesday that the ministries of the Interior, Foreign Affairs and Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations reinforce the human and technical resources that work in surveillance and rescue in waters close to the islands due to the foreseeable growth in the arrivals of boats with migrants due to the good state of the sea characteristic of the summer months.
Clavijo recalled that each summer period there is an increase in the number of arrivals of boats and cayucos from the African continent, especially from the coasts of Senegal, for which he demands that the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the head of Inclusion , Social Security and Migrations, José Luis Escrivá and that of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, that they give “true information” that corresponds to the reality that exists in Canarian waters.
“We cannot remain at the risk of chance or coincidence to not only monitor the waters and coasts of the Canary Islands,” explained the head of the Canary Islands Government, “but also to avoid more deaths at sea and more tragedies at the gates of of our land.”
Along these lines, he pointed out that “the priority must be to save human lives and for that it is necessary to strengthen all the means for surveillance and monitoring of the movements of ships to the Canary Islands.”
Another new element in the management of irregular migratory flows in the countries of origin is related to the growing social, economic and political instability in states such as Senegal, the place of origin of several of the cayucos that have arrived in the Canary Islands in recent weeks after cover maritime distances in some cases greater than 1,000 kilometers from cities such as M’Bour, one hundred kilometers south of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, or Kafountine, more than 1,700 kilometers from the Canary coast.
“The strong political crisis that Senegal is now experiencing in the months prior to the presidential election scheduled for next 2024 has generated a climate of uncertainty and high socio-economic instability that favors the reactivation of the maritime route of canoes and small boats to the islands. “, indicated Fernando Clavijo, alluding to the resignation of Senegalese President Macky Sall so as not to aspire to a new mandate in Dakar and the political tension that this decision by Sall has generated in the country.
REACTIVATION OF THE CAYUCOS ROUTE
“The social unrest is causing, among other things, the reactivation of the canoe route that departs from the Senegalese coast to the Canary Islands,” he said in a note sent by the Executive.
According to the official report from the Ministry of the Interior regarding immigration attempting to enter Spain irregularly, the amount accumulated in the period between January 1 and July 15 reveals that the number of migrants arriving at the Spanish border via maritime transport was 13,487 people in 642 nacelles, a figure that increased compared to the same period in 2022 when 13,335 migrants arrived in 608 boats.
Of this irregular emigration by sea, so far from 2023 up to 7,590 people have managed to reach the coasts of the Canary Islands aboard 155 boats.
In the same period of 2022, there were 9,308 arrivals of migrants who traveled aboard 204 gondolas.
This slight decrease occurred in the months prior to summer, which is a period of good conditions at sea for navigation in the type of precarious vessels that are used on the route to the Canary Islands, the Canarian Government highlighted.
