MADRID: At least seven migrants died off Spain’s Canary Islands while more than 380 people were rescued on Monday, the country’s maritime rescue services said.
Two deceased people were found aboard a migrant boat when the coast guard rescued 132 people on Monday, 150 km off Lanzarote. During the same journey, five other migrants had died and been thrown into the sea, authorities added.
Another 250 migrants were rescued by coast guard boats off Lanzarote and the Canary Island of El Hierro earlier on Monday, authorities said. On Sunday, 107 migrants were rescued off El Hierro, according to authorities.
“The worst forecasts are coming true. The Atlantic route is once again claiming lives, this time off the coast of Lanzarote. Behind each one is a life, a story, and a family,” Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo said in a message on X.
The Atlantic route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the world’s deadliest migration crossings. Thousands of migrants attempt the journey each year in overcrowded boats, seeking to reach Spanish territory despite rough seas, strong currents and long distances.
Arrivals tend to pick up in the autumn months, when sea conditions along the route are generally calmer and more favourable for crossings.
Migrant arrivals have declined so far this year compared with the same period in 2025, but crossings increased sharply in October, putting additional pressure on reception and emergency services on some of the Canary Islands, particularly the smaller and less densely populated ones.
Migrant arrivals in the archipelago have fallen 18pc year on year to 11,527 people, according to the office of the Spanish government’s representative in the Canary Islands.
Asylum seekers deported
Spain has returned to Morocco more than a dozen sub-Saharan African and Asian migrants who reached the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and were turned down for asylum, the first deportation of its kind from the enclave since a mass border crossing in July.
The Interior Ministry said the group had been sent back to Morocco after it agreed to receive them and they remained on Moroccan territory at present. It declined to give numbers or nationalities but migrant and rights charities operating in Ceuta said 16 people from Senegal, Nigeria, Yemen, Cameroon and Bangladesh were deported.
The NGOs claim such returns fail to take into account the risks associated with Morocco’s treatment of migrants from other countries and fly in the face of the values espoused by Spain’s leftist government.
Virginia Alvarez, an Amnesty International researcher, said Spain’s posture was hypocritical. “Spain, despite its [progressive] speeches in Europe, is not ensuring that human rights guarantees are met for people who cross its borders in Ceuta and Melilla,” she said. “Morocco does not respect many human rights.”
Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2026
