Europe has a new Lampedusa. It is the Spanish island of El Hierro, in the Atlantic Ocean, where a record number of landings have been recorded. This year, almost twice as many migrants as residents have arrived in the southernmost of Spain’s Canary Islands. According to the Red Cross, by mid-November around 19,400 irregulars had reached its coasts: the inhabitants are 11,400.
The Canary Islands have seen the fastest increase in sea arrivals in the European Union this year, bucking the trend in the central Mediterranean where landings are falling sharply. As of November 15, they had received a total of 39,713 people, 23 percent more than in the same period last year, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry.
Numbers in contrast
The increase goes against the trend of other regions of the EU, with the arrivals of irregular migrants which, according to Frontex, have fallen by 43 percent overall, reaching 191,900 from the beginning of the year until October. On the central Mediterranean route, the one that leads to Italy and which still remains the busiest, the drop was as much as 62 percent. In West Africa, however, there was an increase of 14%, a sign that the routes are changing. “The route to the Canary Islands has grown because other routes are blocked,” said Alberto Ares, a migration researcher at Spain’s Comillas Pontifical University and director of a European refugee support network.
This huge influx on the island of El Hierro is creating quite a few problems. The hospital’s 31 regular beds now house only people fleeing jihadist violence and economic problems in Mali, as well as the unrest and poverty of Senegal and Morocco. And there is no room for locals. “The hospital is overwhelmed,” 67-year-old Teresa Camacho told Reuters. The woman said her appointment was canceled to make room for migrants. The hospital’s medical director, Luis Gonzalez, explained that the staff is exhausted. The first aid station has been moved to a corridor, there is a tent in the parking lot and other makeshift first aid facilities have been set up at the port.
The instability of the Sahel
In West Africa, human smuggling networks have exploited the instability of the Sahel region, worsened by the worsening Islamist insurgency in Mali, and are sending more boats, Frontex said. And the numbers are impressive: the Canaries attracted almost 10 thousand Malians in the January-August period, compared to 784 in the same period last year. The Senegalese were the second largest group, the Moroccans the third. These people embark in Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia and sail west across the Atlantic to the archipelago, seeking a better future in Europe.
Migrants typically pay 400 to 1,500 euros for a crossing of up to 2,200 kilometers from West Africa, a Spanish security source said. El Hierro is the furthest Canary Island from Africa and the route across the open ocean is extremely dangerous. But authorities believe smugglers undertook it last year to avoid African and Spanish coast guard patrols in waters between the continent and other Canary Islands. But shipwrecks are frequent, and it is difficult to calculate the number of people who die on the long journey.
Integration and concerns
So far Spain is successfully managing to integrate migrants into its labor market, employing them in sectors where productivity is lowest, and this has been one of the ingredients behind the Iberian economic miracle, with the country expected to be able to grow by 2.7% this year and could even beat the United States.
The Iberian miracle: how Spain achieved record growth, beating the USA
Its economy could become the fastest growing among the world’s major economies. But there is concern among the population and a poll published in October by the newspaper El Pais found that 57% of citizens believe that there are too many immigrants in the country.
