The Canary Islands of Spain see 1,600 migrants arrive in one weekend

More than 1,600 migrants have been rescued at sea or have reached the Canary Islands in small boats during the weekend, according to the Spanish emergency services.

About 1000 arrived on Saturday only, at the start of about twenty boats barely able to navigate.

The body of a person who died during the dangerous journey was recovered by rescuers in the waters near the island of El Hierro. Another person was airlifted to a local hospital with an unspecified health problem.

The route to the islands from West Africa, which at its closest point to Morocco is 100 kilometers away, experienced a increased traffic this year.

The The EU funded Morocco in 2019 to prevent migrants from reaching southern Spain via the Mediterranean Sea.

According to Spanish governmentThis year, there were more than 11,000 arrivals in the Canary Islands, compared to 2,557 during the same period last year.

The Atlantic route became the deadliest sea route to reach Europe with more than 600 confirmed deaths of missing persons, according to United Nations Refugee Agency.

the arrivals in 2020 they are still low compared to the 30,000 migrants who reached the islands in 2006. But they are at their highest level in more than one decade

since Spain it has reduced the flow of arrivals by sea to a few hundred per year thanks to agreements with West African countries.