(AFP) A record 46,843 migrants reached Spain’s Canary Islands illegally in 2024 via the increasingly deadly Atlantic route, the second consecutive year of unprecedented arrival numbers, official data showed on Thursday.
The landmark came as the European country received 63,970 irregular migrants last year, the vast majority in the Atlantic archipelago, up from 56,852 in 2023, the interior ministry said.
Spain has moved to the forefront of the European Union’s migration crisis as tighter controls in the Mediterranean push more migrants to attempt the perilous trip from west Africa to the Canaries.
EU border agency Frontex has said irregular crossings into the bloc from January to November 2024 fell 40 percent overall. But they grew 19 percent on the Atlantic route, with Mali, Senegal and Morocco the most common nationalities.
