for The Associated Press
07 September, 2006
African migrants wait on the quayside in the port of Los Abrigos, on the Canary Island of Tenerife, Spain, from where they will either be repatriated or sent on to the mainland.
During 2006, the Canary Islands saw a fivefold increase in numbers of people attempting to enter the European Union irregularly. After Morocco intensified action to curtail undocumented crossings across the Strait of Gibraltar directly into Spain, migrants sought an alternative route. Many attempted the highly dangerous passage to the Canaries on small Senegalese fishing boats. Numbers of crossings decreased abruptly in 2008 following a crackdown by authorities, but increased sharply again in 2020, leading to reports of dire conditions in holding centers.
