The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, announced yesterday, Saturday, that the archipelago expects to receive approximately 70,000 migrants by the end of the year, nearly 7,000 of whom will be unaccompanied minors.
Speaking to journalists, Clavijo explained that these figures align with the expectations of the European Union, with whom he met on Friday in Brussels. The discussions focused on the "Canary route," deemed the most dangerous in the world for migrants.
He also said that an estimated 300,000 Sub-Saharan Africans are currently waiting in Mauritania for better weather conditions to attempt the journey across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands in pateras or cayucos (small wooden boats).
"The European Union has quite pessimistic expectations, which is why it's essential to amend the Migrants Law to distribute unaccompanied minors across the entire national territory," Clavijo stated.
He said that initial discussions to make the distribution of minors arriving in the Canary Islands mandatory, rather than dependent on the discretion of individual regions of Spain, have been "encouraging."
Clavijo expressed hope that progress on this issue could be made in the coming week, emphasizing that the situation in the Canary Islands is "unsustainable." The islands already have 5,700 unaccompanied minors and are running out of space to accommodate them, putting strain on its capacity to provide adequate care.
