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.