Migrants replace tourists on Canary Islands’ beaches as human traffickers target Spanish resort

Around 8,000 migrants have arrived in the Canary Islands this year, the largest number in more than a decade, reports Graham Keeley

In normal times, the port of Mogán is popular with British tourists who come to this Canary Islands' resort to enjoy the year-round sunshine.

This year, however, tourists have been replaced by new arrivals: migrants who are arriving in fleets of flimsy boats almost every day from Africa.

Instead of tourists filling up the hotels in this resort on the island of Gran Canaria, over 1,350 migrants, among them women and children, are camped out in a makeshift camp in the port area called Arguineguin.

Without adequate tents, about 400 of these are sleeping with only a blanket as cover. About 400 more are being housed in hotels, angering locals who believe they are getting special treatment, say observers.

These are just some of the 8,000 migrants who have landed in the Canary Islands this year, the largest number since 2006 when the archipelago was overcome by the arrival of 30,000 mostly African migrants.

The seven islands off the coast of Africa have long been British tourists' Spanish holiday destination but are now at the centre of a migration crisis.

“We are struggling to cope, with our 100 volunteers working 24 hours a day, but still more boats come full with migrants,” Jose Verona of the Red Cross told The Independent, as he worked to help 375 people who arrived on Wednesday.

“We are doing our best but obviously these people need to be provided with accommodation. Some have health problems. Some are in reception centres, others are in hotels.”

Traffickers have switched routes, moving their human cargo along the dangerous route between western Africa to Spain's archipelago instead of across the Mediterranean to southern Spain.

Between January and 15 October, there has been a 688 per cent rise in migrant arrivals to the Canary Islands compared with the same period in 2019, with 8,102 migrants reaching the seven islands, according to the Spanish government figures.

In comparison, there was a 29.9 per cent decrease in the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Spain this year compared with the same period in 2019, with 12,336 arriving in Europe compared to 17,601 last year.

The Atlantic route is far more dangerous than the Mediterranean.

A total of 239 migrants have died trying to reach the Canaries between 1 January and 19 August, compared to 210 during all of last year, and 43 in 2018, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the absence of tourists has been a hammer blow to the islands' economy, which depends on holidaymakers for 35 per cent of GDP and 40 per cent of jobs.

Between January and September 1.06 million Britons holidayed in the Canary Islands, but most of them arrived during the winter season before the pandemic reached Europe. In comparison last year, the islands attracted 3.8 million British tourists.  

British holidaymakers represented 32.7 per cent of all tourists last year, according to data from the Canary Islands government, making them the largest group by nationality.

The boats depart not only from Morocco and Mauritania, the two nations closest to the archipelago, but also from Senegal and Gambia, over 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) further south.

Most migrants attempting the crossing come from Africa's Sahel region and western Africa.

But some arrivals have originated from as far away as South Sudan and the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean.

Traffickers have lowered their prices from around £1,800 to about £720, aid groups say.

However, the type of migrant has changed since September brought calmer seas and winds in the Atlantic.

“Before we were seeing migrants who had arrived from countries where the political situation was in turmoil, but now these are economic migrants who are coming from countries like Morocco because of the effect of Covid-19 on their economies,” Txema Santana, of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid, told The Independent.

Hamza Tarik, a Moroccan YouTuber who uses the name Patruc Official and who has 20,000 followers, captured his arrival in the islands in a small boat surrounded by other men then posted it on the internet. He is seen telling the camera: “Thank god I'm ok and we all arrived safely in Spain.” He was permitted to stay because he claimed he has relatives living in Gran Canaria.

Mr Santana claimed the Spanish government does not want to move thousands of migrants to the Spanish mainland because it will send out a calling card to those waiting in Africa that the Canary Islands is a route to a new life in Europe.

Local and regional authorities have been pressurising Spain's left-wing government to relieve the pressure on overstretched reception areas, asking for military facilities to open their doors.

The Spanish government insists it has moved hundreds of the most “vulnerable” migrants from the Canary Islands to the mainland.

“About a thousand people have been transferred this year to the mainland. But it is true we don't want to send out the wrong message to migrants that if they come to the Canary Islands it is a route to Europe,” a government source said.

The daily drip feed of migrant boats has angered islanders, said David Crespo, editor of Cronicas de Canarias, a local online paper.

“Some people are angry. They see all these migrants arriving and some being put up in hotels at a time when there is no tourism and they feel they are getting special treatment,” said Mr Crespo.

Spain's far-right Vox party has been quick to capitalise on the situation.

When Rocio de Meer, a Vox MP, visited Gran Canaria last Sunday, she said: “The Canary Islands are being invaded. The islands are being abandoned by the government.”

The Red Cross denied local media reports that their staff had received verbal abuse for helping migrants.

Mr Santana said the change in routes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic owes nothing to the way the Covid-19 pandemic has forced countries to close their borders and is more about international brinkmanship.

Anxious to halt the tide of migrants arriving on beaches in southern Spain, the European Union paid Morocco £352m last year to support reforms which included a crackdown on migration.

Morocco completed its side of the deal and last year moved migrants away from its northern shore to the south of the country.

Traffickers began to channel migrants towards the Atlantic route to the promised land: Europe.

Similar deals had been struck between the European Union and Libya and Turkey, which have also served as launching pads for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

Migrants who arrive in the islands are tested for Covid-19 and anyone found to be infected must quarantine.

Aid groups in the islands say that migrants can wait up to six months for their asylum cases to be considered and, meanwhile, have to live in cramped, unhygienic conditions.

A spokeswoman for the Spanish government said: “We are processing cases as fast as we can be; we have seen a large surge in cases recently.”

When the archipelago was a hotspot for migrants in 2006, Spain stepped up patrols to slow the pace of arrivals.

Spain struck a deal with African countries which were the source of these migrants, promising financial aid in return for development programmes which made it less attractive for them to leave their home countries.

In an unusual move, Madrid opened its own police station on foreign soil, stationing five officers permanently in Mauritania.