A total of 5,857 people have arrived in the Canary Islands in 57 cayucos, pateras and inflatable boats between 1 November and 5.00 pm on Tuesday, according to official figures seen by EFE.
If we look back to 1 October, when rescues resumed on a daily basis after months of calm, we can see that in just six weeks 12,056 people have set out on the Atlantic Route (counting only those who have reached the Canary Islands safely), three times as many as during the whole of the first half of the year, when the figure stood at 3,708.
As a result of this steady trickle of boats, the trend for the Canary Route, which had appeared to be consolidating its downward trajectory following the record figures of 2023 and 2024, has now been reversed: at present, arrivals in 2026 total 19,184 people, almost 31 per cent more than a year ago; whereas just a few months ago the figure stood at -65 per cent.
Canary Islands route: Senegal is driving the recent rise in arrivals
There are several factors behind this, but Senegal makes the biggest difference, as the Government’s representative in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana, acknowledged on Monday at the La Restinga quay.
Throughout 2025 and much of 2026, hardly any small boats arrived from that country. The route had been blocked for months in Mauritania and appeared to be under control in Senegal as well, which meant that most of the small boats were setting off from even further south, from The Gambia and Guinea.
At the end of the summer, on 30 September, figures from the Guardia Civil indicated that cooperation between the police forces of Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal had succeeded this year in stopping two out of every three small boats attempting to set sail for the Canary Islands at the point of departure; 70 per cent, to be precise. As of that date, the total number of arrivals was 5,715 fewer than a year earlier, a fall of 44.5 per cent.
However, in recent weeks, almost all the small boats reaching the south of El Hierro have come from Senegal, from various fishing villages in the north of the country, but also from Dakar.
«Senegal has been overwhelmed,» said the Government delegate in El Hierro. In fact, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, met last week with his Senegalese counterpart in Dakar to try to bring the number of departures under better control.
Ruta Canaria recorded three record-breaking years with Senegal
With a history spanning 32 years (the first small boat to reach the Canary Islands arrived in Fuerteventura in August 1994), the Atlantic Route has experienced periodic ups and downs, with years of thousands of rescues followed by stable periods. There were even five consecutive years with fewer than 500 arrivals per year (from 2010 to 2014).
But every time young people from Senegal have taken to the sea, the Canary Route has been overwhelmed: this happened in 2006, during the first ‚cayuco‘ crisis, and was repeated in 2023 and 2024, amidst the social protests towards the end of Macky Sall’s government.
Those three years have, in fact, seen three record-breaking figures for the Canary Islands Route, with 31,993, 39,910 and 46,843 people rescued.
Senegal: Disappointed hopes turn their gaze towards Europe
A Senegalese activist who has been living in Spain for years, and who himself arrived in the Canary Islands by cayuco, is in no doubt as to what is happening: the hopes raised by the change of government in 2024 have faded, and young people are once again looking to Europe.
He speaks from personal experience: one of the 5,857 people who have arrived in the Canary Islands over these nine days in November is a member of his family.
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