Canary Islands : Hotels shelter more than 7,000 migrants    

Hotels and apartments in the Canary Islands have welcomed, since the start of December, up to 7,786 migrants to help ease the migration crisis facing the archipelago.

Quoting the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that the authorities' strategy, announced in November and called Plan Canarias, provided 7,000 temporary shelters in Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Fuerteventura.

17 hotels and apartment buildings housed 5,500 migrants, according to ministry data.

According to Txema Santana, spokesperson for the Spanish Commission for Refugee Assistance (CEAR) «the migratory rebound began in September 2019, and the humanitarian network was set up a year and two months later. This is the situation».

As of December 15, 21,452 migrants reached the Canary Islands by sea, according to data from the Ministry of Interior. In just 15 days, 1,886 others arrived on the islands. These numbers make of 2020 the second year with the most arrivals, after the 31,000 arrivals recorded in 2006.

The Red Cross indicates that the Canary Islands Route kills between 5% and 8% of those who venture there, which translates into a range of 1,000 to 1,700 lives lost in 2020, wrote El Pais.