Spain pledges 50 million euros for Canary islands migrant surge

By Borja Suarez

ARGUINEGUIN, Spain (Reuters) - Spain is readying a 50 million euro ($52.86 million) aid package to help the Canary Islands cope with an "extraordinary migration flow", Spain's acting Migration Minister said on Thursday.

The aid will also support more than 4,000 unaccompanied children and teenagers under the care of local authorities.

Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 15 of this year, the islands in the Atlantic have received 23,537 migrants, an 80% increase from the same period last year, according to official data.

Since October began, around 4,000 migrants are reaching the Canaries each week.

If that pace continues, the archipelago which lies around 100 kilometres (60 miles) off Africa's west coast could exceed a record set in 2006, when almost 32,000 migrants reach the islands.

On Thursday, 59 migrants - including 11 women and a baby - were taken to Arguineguin port in Gran Canaria after being rescued from a dinghy, a Reuters witness reported.

They were among more than 200 people who on Thursday reached the islands, after 800 were rescued the previous day, according to the emergency services.

During a visit to El Hierro, the westernmost and tiniest island, Migration Minister Jose Luis Escriva said the situation was "unprecedented", and that El Hierro in particular was experiencing an "extraordinary flow".

Escriva said the government pledged that there will be no more than 6,000 migrants in the Canary islands at any given time, with additional arrivals being transferred to the mainland.

"When we have lower arrivals, migrants stay on average a month and a half in the islands. Now with an average weekly arrivals of 4,000 (migrants), the average stay is a week and a half," he said.

The Atlantic migration route to the Canary Islands, typically used by sub-Saharan African migrants trying to reach Spain, is one of the world's deadliest. At least 559 people - including 22 children - died in 2022 in attempts to reach the Canary Islands, according to data from the U.N.'s International Organisation for Migration.

($1 = 0.9459 euros)

(Writing by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Aislin Laing and Josie Kao)