Spain calls urgent migration meeting after 4,587 people reach Canary Islands in six days

Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo and El Hierro’s island council president, Alpidio Armas, will join the Interministerial Immigration Commission at the Moncloa complex in Madrid ahead of Tuesday’s cabinet meeting. Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Víctor Torres will chair the talks, which will bring together the ministries responsible for foreign affairs, interior, migration, labour, social rights and children.

The regional government counted 49 boats across the archipelago from 1 to 6 November, 35 of them arriving on El Hierro. The island received just two boats over the same six days in 2025 and 11 in 2024. Across the Canaries, the regional tally had already passed 3,200 people in 39 boats by the end of 5 November. ALSO READ: Pope Leo concludes Spain trip in Tenerife after highlighting migrant crisis in Canary Islands.

Arrivals continued on Saturday. In a separate tally covering less than 24 hours, 743 people reached the islands in seven boats. Six brought a total of 600 people to El Hierro, including 205 who disembarked at La Restinga. The seventh boat reached Lanzarote. ALSO READ: Spanish court to investigate deadly Ceuta migrant surge as possible ‘hybrid warfare’ operation. 

Hundreds rescued as El Hierro moves people to Tenerife

El Hierro, home to about 11,400 people, has borne the brunt of the latest arrivals. On Friday alone, Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service assisted 854 people aboard seven boats off the island and brought them to La Restinga. The first vessel reached the harbour at about 1am carrying 134 people. The largest carried 235, and the last arrived at around 12.30pm.

Women and children were among those brought ashore, although most of the passengers were men. Emergency services said those aboard were from sub-Saharan Africa. Their individual countries of origin and the boats’ departure points had yet to be established.

Red Cross teams, regional emergency services, police and port staff helped receive the passengers. After initial medical checks and humanitarian assistance, those awaiting onward transfers were taken to the temporary reception centre in San Andrés, where a local NGO provides support. Nine people who had arrived on different boats in recent days remained at El Hierro’s Nuestra Señora de los Reyes Hospital.

Authorities moved 350 people to Tenerife on Friday morning’s scheduled ferry and planned to transfer another 350 on the afternoon crossing to free up reception space. Clavijo said buses had been diverted to help manage arrivals and medical staff had been brought in from other islands to work at La Restinga.

Rescue crews were also active elsewhere in the archipelago. They brought a group ashore at Arguineguín in Gran Canaria on Thursday night, though the number was still unconfirmed. Two boats reached Lanzarote between Thursday evening and Friday morning, one carrying 27 men from North Africa and the other carrying 61 people. ALSO READ: Mauritania and Spain pledge cooperation on migration and to combat people smuggling.

Clavijo presses Madrid and Brussels for help

Clavijo told Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Saturday about ‘the seriousness of the situation in El Hierro in the face of migration pressure and growing unease among its residents’, according to the regional president’s account of their conversation. ALSO READ: Spain will not ‘turn migrants into the enemy’, Sánchez tells UN as he highlights Ceuta crisis.

‘The Canary Islands have been calling for more resources, planning and a coordinated response from the state for months,’ Clavijo said. He said Sánchez had committed to convening the commission and strengthening health services on El Hierro through the State Secretariat for Migration.

The regional government wants Tuesday’s meeting to produce a contingency plan with deadlines, resources in place ahead of further arrivals and clear responsibilities for each administration. Its requests include more National Police and Guardia Civil officers, additional healthcare and reception capacity, and better coordination of transfers between islands. Nieves Lady Barreto, the Canary Islands’ regional presidency minister, has called on the Interior Ministry to deploy more officers immediately.

Clavijo has also requested urgent meetings with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner. ‘The Canary Islands cannot continue to face virtually alone a situation that requires the involvement of the state and Europe,’ he said.

Atlantic crossings accelerate after a quieter year

The rise began in October, when 6,164 people were rescued along the Canary Islands route. Arrivals over the first ten months of 2026 were still nearly 61% below the same period in 2024, but Clavijo said the pace on some days had already surpassed that of the record year, describing the situation on El Hierro as ‘absolutely unsustainable’. ALSO READ: Irregular migration to Spain dropped by over 40% in 2025.

Crossings from West Africa generally increase in autumn as sea conditions improve, and Clavijo attributed the latest surge in departures to calmer waters.

The long Atlantic crossing remains one of the world’s deadliest migration routes, with overcrowded boats exposed to strong currents and rough seas. Spanish media reported that rescue crews recovered a body during an operation involving two boats off El Hierro on Thursday night, in which about 500 people were rescued. There were also reports of at least nine deaths off the islands in recent weeks and the airlift of a critically ill baby to hospital after an earlier arrival.