Scores of African Migrants Arrive on Spain’s Canary Islands

Sudan Events – Sumaya Sayed

Emergency services in the Spanish Canary Islands said more than 500 migrants had reached there in four large wooden boats this week.

One of the boats was carrying 280 migrants, the islands’ emergency service said. The state news agency EFE says it is the most significant number in a single boat since human traffickers regularly began using the Canary Islands route in 1994.

Spanish Red Cross coordinator José Antonio Rodríguez Verona told The Associated Press he had not seen so many people in one boat since 2008 when 234 arrived in a single vessel.

Only five migrants needed medical treatment on arrival at the small port of La Restinga on the southern tip of Hierro Island.