Spain’s Canary Islands break migrant record in 2024

Migrants disembark after being rescued at sea at a port on the Canary island of El Hierro, on Tuesday. (AFP)
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Updated 03 December 2024
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Spain’s Canary Islands break migrant record in 2024

MADRID: The number of migrants arriving in Spain’s Canary Islands by boat from West Africa hit a new annual record in 2024 for the second year in a row, official data showed on Tuesday.

With controls tightening in the Mediterranean, the Canaries route has become a favorite for people fleeing poverty and conflict in Africa, mostly on overcrowded, barely seaworthy vessels and without sufficient drinking water.

A total of 41,425 migrants entered the seven islands located in the Atlantic off the northwestern coast of Africa between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30, Interior Ministry data showed.

With one month of 2024 still to go, that is already more than the previous record of 39,910 migrants who arrived in the archipelago of 2.2 million people during all of 2023, a level that smashed the old mark set in 2006.

So far this year, a total of 610 boats carrying migrants have managed to arrive in the Canaries, up from 530 during all of 2023.

The regional government of the Canaries says it is overwhelmed, and Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in August went on a tour of West African countries in a bid to boost local efforts to curb illegal migration from Mauritania, Senegal and the Gambia, the main departure points for migrant boats headed to the archipelago.


Kremlin suggests it may not like new Ukraine peace proposals after recent US-Ukraine talks

Updated 3 sec ago
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Kremlin suggests it may not like new Ukraine peace proposals after recent US-Ukraine talks

MOSCOW: Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Friday that Moscow has not seen revised US proposals made after the most recent talks with Ukraine, but that it may not like parts of them.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday Kyiv had agreed on key points of a post-war reconstruction plan in talks with US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and other top officials.
Zelensky said work on an “economic document” was proceeding and that Ukraine was “fully aligned with the American side.”
The United States has sought to establish an investment fund in Ukraine for sectors including rare metals as a central aspect of the country’s post-war reconstruction.
Moscow has also
signalled
its interest in attracting foreign investment after the Wall Street Journal reported that Washington’s peace plan includes proposals to invest in Russian rare earths and energy.
Ushakov, the Kremlin aide, said on Friday that the Russian side hadn’t yet seen the new proposals, but suggested Moscow may not look upon them favorably..”..We haven’t seen the revised versions of the American drafts. When we see them, we may not like a lot of things, that’s how I sense it,” Ushakov told reporters.
He added that European and Ukrainian officials were expected to engage in an “active brainstorming session” over the weekend, and that the Kremlin needed to see what the outcome would be.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that there were no lingering “misunderstandings” with Washington over Ukraine, but added that Moscow wanted any peace plan to include collective security guarantees for all parties involved.