Dilip Kuner
AROUND 500 migrants have arrived in the Canaries over the course of the Christmas period so far.
In the course of 24 hours 404 people arrived in 10 small boats on the islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Fuerteventura from Christmas Eve into Christmas Day.
The last two boats detected on Christmas Day were a lifeboat in the south of Gran Canaria, whose 35 occupants – 28 men, five women and two children – were taken to the Arguineguín dock. An inflatable boat with 42 people on board was spotted to the south of Fuerteventura. A Sea Rescue boat from Gran Canaria went to meet the latter.
Sources from the emergency services said that its occupants were apparently in good health, although exhausted and hungry because they had been adrift for quite some time.
These two boats followed five boats with 159 migrants on board that reached the Canary Islands’ coasts on Christmas Eve and the early hours of the morning on Christmas Day.
In total, 120 men arrived in Gran Canaria in three boats, one patera arrived in Tenerife with seven people, five adult men and two children, and another boat arrived in Fuerteventura with 32 migrants, of whom 25 were men and seven women. All of the occupants were in good health and no transfers to health centres were made, according to emergency services.
Another ‘kayak’ with 61 men aboard arrived some hours later, with two more boats arriving today (December 27).
In total more than 500 people have arrived in four days.
