El Hierro has about 11,000 people. On Saturday, 1,235 more arrived by boat, as the Canary Islands log their busiest day since 2020

Twelve large wooden boats came ashore on El Hierro on Saturday 14 November, carrying 1,235 people. Another 203 were picked up off Gran Canaria and 50 reached Tenerife. The total, 1,488, is the most people to arrive in the Canary Islands by sea in a single day since 2020, according to Spain’s maritime rescue service.

Provisional figures show 108 women and 167 children among Saturday’s arrivals. One boat alone carried 240 people, including 36 children. Across Friday and Saturday more than 2,300 people arrived on 22 boats, and two rescues were still under way when the weekend figures were compiled.

No deaths at sea had been reported from the weekend’s crossings as of early Monday, Perth time. Eleven people from earlier arrivals were still in hospital.

Why El Hierro?

El Hierro, the westernmost of the main islands, took 12 of Saturday’s 14 boats. Most are large wooden vessels that set out from Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania. Most of the people on board were from Senegal, Gambia and Guinea, maritime officials said.

The island’s reception centre at La Restinga, a fishing village on the southern tip, already held 317 people on Saturday before the new boats arrived. Another 158 were moved to Tenerife on the regular ferry. The island council declared a social emergency earlier this month after more than 8,000 people landed in five weeks.

Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo said this month’s boats had “completely overwhelmed” the island’s resources. He has written to the EU’s Migration Commissioner, Magnus Brunner, asking for urgent action, and said Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had promised to call an interministerial commission on immigration. Spain’s Minister for Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, was due in La Restinga on Sunday.

Why now, if the year is down?

The Interior Ministry recorded 6,194 arrivals in the Canaries in October, the heaviest month on the route since 2023. Yet the January to October total was still 5.5% lower than in the same period last year, with just over 13,000 of Spain’s 28,000 sea arrivals reaching the Canaries.

Canary authorities blame a sudden gap in patrols off Senegal, saying Senegalese security forces were redeployed to sporting events in Dakar. Officials do not expect the pace to ease before the weather on the route changes in December.

Is this the 2023 surge again?

Not yet. In 2023 the Canaries took almost 40,000 arrivals over the year, a record that drove months of emergency transfers to mainland Spain. This autumn’s spike is shorter and sharper, and it is falling heavily on one small island rather than spreading across the archipelago.

The Atlantic route is one of the deadliest migration crossings in the world, which is why rescue crews treat every boat sighted off El Hierro as an emergency.

What does it mean beyond Spain?

The Canaries are the EU’s southernmost frontier in the Atlantic. Clavijo’s letter to Brussels asks the rest of the bloc to share a load that, this month, is falling on one island council and its volunteers. How Madrid and Brussels answer will show whether Europe’s promises on sharing responsibility reach a frontline island of about 11,000 people.

VNN will update this story as more is confirmed.