A RECORD number of migrants and refugees reached the Canary Islands by sea in 2024, Spanish authorities have revealed.

Spain’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday that the country had received 63,970 migrants and refugees who arrived via irregular routes last year, including 46,843 people who reached the Canary Islands using the increasingly deadly Atlantic migration route.

This was a sharp increase from the 56,852 migrants and refugees who entered Spain in 2023.

European Union border agency Frontex said “irregular” crossings into the bloc from January to November 2024 fell by 40 per cent overall but grew 19 by per cent on the Atlantic route.

Most people attempting the crossing came from Mali, Senegal and Morocco, Frontex added.

Years of economic plunder by Western powers, unemployment and the effects of climate change on farming communities in West Africa are among the reasons why people attempt the dangerous crossing.

The Atlantic route, which includes departure points in Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania and Morocco, is also the world’s deadliest.

Last week, at least 69 people, including 25 Malians, were killed when their boat heading from West Africa to the Canary Islands capsized off the coast of Morocco.

A report by NGO Caminando Fronteras said last month that at least 10,457 migrants had died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain by sea from January 1 to December 5 2024, a 50 per cent increase from 2023 and the highest toll since the organisation began keeping records in 2007.

Migrant aid group Walking Borders also blamed a lack of action or arbitrary rescues and the criminalisation of migrants for the surge in deaths at sea. 

The aid group has accused EU governments of “the prioritisation of immigration control over the right to life.”