A record-breaking 180 African immigrants reached the Canary Islands in a single ocean-going canoe on Monday as new super-sized vessels began to be used in the perilous journey from Africa’s Atlantic coast.
The 180 sub-Saharan Africans were picked up by a Spanish maritime rescue vessel off the island of Tenerife.
Massive new versions of the West African wooden fishing canoes known as cayucos are being built in Senegal and other countries as people traffickers seek to increase their returns on the lucrative route into Europe via the Canary Islands.
While these canoes routinely carried up to 50 people, the new boats can transport more than 100 young Africans seeking a new life in Europe.
Another canoe carrying 149 people arrived at the Canary Island of El Hierro over the weekend.
The large canoes have, however, proved to be no more seaworthy than their predecessors, many of which are known to have sunk while struggling to cross the stretch of Atlantic Ocean that separates the Canary Islands from Africa.
At least 50 people are believed to have drowned 12 days ago when passengers on one boat panicked and capsized their own vessel as a Spanish patrol attempted to help them in heavy seas about 144km from Tenerife. Immigrant groups have since complained that heavy-handed attempts at helping the vessel may have caused it to go over.
A further 48 immigrants survived the disaster. The migrants, who mainly hail from the West African country of Guinea-Bissau, later said that they had been at sea for 10 days.
It was the second worst single disaster on an immigration route that opened up three years ago after authorities in Morocco and the western Sahara closed down routes starting from their shores.
The Red Cross has reported that, in the worst disaster to date, 80 people drowned when a cayuco sank off the coast of Senegal last December.
Although a total of 275 people reached Spanish beaches on immigrant boats from Africa on Sunday alone, authorities insist they have managed to halve the numbers arriving in Spain this way since last year.
The 6 306 immigrants who landed on Spanish beaches in the first half of this year were 55% fewer than those who arrived over the same period in 2006.
More than 30 000 immigrants from Africa were intercepted while trying to reach the Canary Islands alone in 2006.
Spain has reached agreements with several West African countries which have led to joint patrols of their coastal waters. Spain also now pursues a vigorous policy of repatriation, which has sparked little public debate. In the first six months of this year it forcibly expelled 8 142 immigrants and turned away a further 20 000 at its frontiers.
Spain has recently been criticised by Human Rights Watch, which claims that under-age immigrants have been regularly abused by staff at centres for immigrants children in the Canary Islands.
As the main recipient of illegal immigration in Europe, Spain is also set to become the chief recipient of European Union funds aimed at preventing people getting across its borders.
It is due to get â,¬87-million over the next two years, according to Spain’s interior ministry. About â,¬4,3-million of that money is being set aside to cover the costs of expelling immigrants. – Guardian Unlimited Â