More than 500 people have reached or been rescued in Canary Islands waters aboard six boats within approximately 24 hours, following a concentrated series of operations around El Hierro and Lanzarote.

The latest rescue took place yesterday afternoon (Thursday) after the occupants of a wooden boat (cayuco) contacted the Canary Islands 112 emergency service for help and to give their location.

The alert was passed to Maritime Rescue at around 2:40pm, prompting the deployment of the Helimer 204 rescue helicopter.

The helicopter located the cayuco more than 41 kilometres south-west of El Hierro, before the Salvamar Navia reached the vessel and transferred more than 100 people aboard.

They were then taken towards the port of La Restinga, where an emergency medical team was waiting to assess them.

429 people in five earlier boats

The operation followed the arrival or rescue of 429 people aboard five boats around El Hierro and Lanzarote between Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday morning.

A cayuco carrying 167 people was assisted near El Hierro and taken to La Restinga.

Meanwhile, another 262 people were rescued from four boats near Lanzarote.

The first of those was located approximately 11 kilometres north-east of the island with 77 people aboard.

Later, rescue crews assisted another three boats carrying 97, 42 and 46 people respectively, which had been located around 98 kilometres north-east of Arrecife.

All 185 people from those three vessels were taken to the port of Arrecife, arriving shortly after 5:30am on Thursday.

The sixth rescue off El Hierro later that day pushed the combined number of people involved in the operations to more than 529, although authorities had not initially released a definitive total for the occupants of the final cayuco.

According to Ministry of the Interior figures reported by EFE, 5,592 people had reached the Canary Islands in 76 boats during 2026 up to 15th September, 55% fewer than during the equivalent period last year.