(AP) Spain’s foreign minister met Sunday with Senegal’s president in the West African country’s capital Sunday to discuss the sudden increase of Senegalese migrants attempting to reach the Canary Islands by boat.
Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya met with President Macky Sall in Dakar to discuss migration and border cooperation between Spain, the European Union and Senegal. The country has become a major point of migrant departures even though it is around 950 miles (1,500 kilometers) away.
More than 18,000 people fleeing poverty, violence or other circumstances at home have arrived in Spain’s Canary Islands this year, a 1,000% increase from the same period in 2019, and over 500 have died in the attempt. Around half of those arrivals — and most of the deaths — have been in the past 30 days, a spike that has strained resources on the archipelago.
