THE Canary Islands are famous as a destination for tourists or a paradise for Europeans who want to live in the warm, without too many taxes. But they are also the destination of the most dangerous migratory route in the world. Caminando Fronteras, which monitors migrants’ rights in Spain, reports that the route to the Canary Islands continues to be the world’s deadliest. There were 9757 deaths at sea in 2024 alone. Most of the migrants come from Mauritania, followed by Senegal.
Mercedes de León Duarte, from the Canarias Convive project, set up by the Canary Islands government as part of their planning to manage the issue, says that, out of a population of 2.2 million, 444,000 are foreigners. “But only 9.4 per cent come from Africa,” she says. “As many as 49.5 per cent come from the Americas, and 35.8 per cent from Europe. There is a toxic and instrumental narrative that represents the arrival of migrants by sea from Africa as an invasion.”
Canarias 50 in Gran Canaria and Las Raices in Tenerife are emergency centres for migrants, each built inside former military areas. Many — including Ecca Social, part of the Jesuit Migrant Service Network — have expressed concern that these centres do not provide inmates with dignified treatment.
Francisco Navarra, who works for Accem, an organisation that runs several centres in the Canaries and in Spain, explains how the Las Raices centre works. There are teams of specialised officers, mainly offering psychological, social, and medical support. The infrastructure is managed locally by a company, Traxa, but the programme as a whole is dependent on the Ministry of Inclusion in Madrid. “The centres’ equipment is temporary, such as tents and chemical toilets, because they are emergency facilities, so no construction can be done,” he says.
Close to the entrance of the Las Raices centre, a group of young people listen to music. The youngest, a man we’re calling Ahmad*, says: “I am from Mali. I have been here for a fortnight. Everything is fine here, but there are many of us, and the city is far away. We are a bit isolated.” Out here, the Aqui Estamos association holds Spanish lessons. With its Informa project, it also offers free legal support in the classrooms of the University of La Laguna, thanks to volunteer lawyers and student trainees. “They ask us for help with documents,” Fran Ledesma, a volunteer, explains. “But [there are] other cases where [human] rights may have been violated.”
On the quay in Arguineguín, a small town in the south of the island of Gran Canaria, two orange hulls stand out among the fishing boats and tourist ferries. These are the vessels of the Salvamento Maritimo, provided by the Ministry of Transport. These are the ones that rescue the precarious boats carrying those trying to reach Europe in search of a new life.
The Sea and Ports sector of the CGT union are clear that the work is hard. “There is a lack of personnel, the work is psychologically and physically exhausting and the shifts are overloaded,” says a statement by the union. “But the struggle has yielded some results. We have obtained two new rescue vessels.”
Cristian Castaño, who is in charge for Marina Mercante sector for the CCOO union, agrees about the nature of the work. “When rescues are your daily work, your heart and your body suffer. They don’t teach you this in nautical school. It could be us, in Europe, experiencing a crisis, going to Africa to look for work. These could be our children — we must take them in.”
Some of the sailors say that their work is important because the situation on the route is “crazy”.
“If you aim for El Hierro — the easternmost island — all it takes is a breakdown, a storm. and you get lost in the Atlantic,” one said. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for boats to be found drifting off the South American coast for weeks, laden with lifeless bodies.
Saidou* lives in Las Palmas in a flat, thanks to an Ecca Social project. He is 18 and comes from Senegal. One day, a friend told him about the trip. “It was a dream: to come to Europe to offer a better life to my family,” he says.
He takes a sip of water before resuming his story. “We spent seven days at sea. It was a terrible experience: we lacked food, the strong winds slowed us down and some of us got sick, vomiting all the time. We only consumed one meal a day, around 3 p.m.: a bag of biscuits and a bag of water each.” The most difficult moment, he says, came “when we were only 30km from the Canaries and ran out of petrol. We were adrift until morning, when we saw a boat in the distance. We tried to call it, but to no avail. Eventually it alerted the Red Cross, which came to aid us and took us to the island of El Hierro.”
After a pause, he goes on: “Many of my friends died at sea. Don’t make the mistake of leaving like that.” When he arrived, he says, he was taken to a centre for minors. “There were 300 of us, in a structure that was enough for a few dozen. I was there for a year and six months, without any schooling.”
The situation of unaccompanied minors is complex in the Canaries. They are the responsibility of the local autonomous government, but on 26 March, the Supreme Court of Madrid ordered the national government to allocate a thousand minors to the international protection programmes managed at state level. This was judged an essential move to solve the crowded situation in the centres on the Canary Islands.
Among the many projects to support minors is the provision of Spanish lessons, organised by the Grupo de Cooperación por el desarrollo UNIDOS of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
“The project involves several faculties,” Professor Susan Cranfield Mackay says. “Thanks to numerous volunteers, including some students, we hold Spanish lessons every morning at a public library. Some of the children come from out-of-town centres, an hour-and-a-half bus ride away. After the age of 16, they are out of compulsory schooling; so the older ones are often excluded from any education.”
Abel Acosta, who works for CEAR, which works with migrants, says that most of the migrants are transferred to the Iberian Peninsula after a couple of months. Those who come as minors often decide to stay. Moussa* is one such. Almost 20 years old, and from Mali, he arrived as a minor.
He is attending an appointment at the CEAR office in Santa Cruz de Tenerife for career counselling. “I would like to learn to drive trucks,” he says. “Now I am a waiter in a hotel, but I would like to be a driver.”
Moussa arrived in El Hierro in 2020. “It was September, and I was 15 years old. In Mali, I had been working with cows since I was eight years old. When I arrived, I was thinking about studying,” he says. He does not want to travel to mainland Europe, at least for the moment. “I am fine here,” he explains. “I am calm. There are good people. I feel free to do what I want, and that is important. I would like to stay here working, studying, and, of course, playing football.”
Moussa currently plays as a midfielder in Raqui San Isidro. Now the Tenerife team, which plays in the Secunda División, has asked him to try out. “Let’s see how it will go,” he says.
*Names have been changed for security reasons
