Spanish sea rescue vessels picked up nearly 500 migrants from Africa near the Canary Islands during the night, they said on Friday.<\/p>\n
More than 300 people were taken on board the search and rescue ship Guardamar Calliope and brought to the port city of La Restinga on the southern tip of El Hierro island, the Spanish sea rescue service wrote on X.<\/p>\n
At the same time, four other vessels were deployed, rescuing the remaining people and taking them to the Canary Islands of La Gomera and Lanzarote.<\/p>\n
In recent days, hundreds of migrants reached the Spanish archipelago off the west coast of Africa in small, often only moderately seaworthy wooden boats.<\/p>\n
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), almost 27,000 migrants were counted arriving on the Canary Islands from Africa between January and mid-September.<\/p>\n
This was significantly more than in the same period of the previous year, when a total of 38,302 migrants were registered on the archipelago by December.<\/p>\n
The boats typically depart from the West African coast between Guinea in the south and Morocco in the north.<\/p>\n
Many locals on the Canary Islands feel overwhelmed by the number of refugees and abandoned by the central government in Madrid and the European Union.<\/p>\n
The exact number of people who drown or die of thirst on the long journey of hundreds of kilometres in open boats is unknown.<\/p>\n
The respected and well-connected Spanish aid organization Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders) estimates that alone between January and the end of May, around 4,800 people lost their lives.<\/p>\n