Spain's Canary Islands poised to break migrant record

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STORY: Migrants are arriving in Spain's Canary Islands at record speed this year.

Over 39,700 migrants came to the Canaries by mid-November...

That's a 23% increase over the previous year, according to Spain's interior ministry.

That's the fastest increase in arrivals by sea in all of the EU, according to its border agency, Frontex.

The islands are on track to break records for the number of irregular migrant arrivals for a second year in a row.

Frontex says smuggling networks are exploiting instability in the Sahel region...

Including in Mali, where conflict is a key driver of the surge.

It's engulfed in an insurgency and its economic troubles have gotten worse since the military seized power in 2020.

"We young people in Mali no longer have to fear death because we have seen all kinds of deaths," explains this migrant from Mali:

"If you stay where you came from or take the wooden boats you might die, so it doesn't matter."

Nearly 10,000 Malians arrived in the Canaries between January and August...

Compared to nearly 800 in the previous year.

Some are coming from even further away...

According to Manuel Dominguez, the Vice President of the Canary Islands autonomous region:

“They have been diverted towards the Canary Islands from the southern border of Europe, where the entry of irregular migrants has been made impossible. So much so, that we are starting to see the arrivals of the first irregular migrants from Asia, which is worrying us a lot because it seems that the world is starting to look at or see the Canary Islands as one of those main uncontrolled points of entry to the European Union.”

One NGO estimates at least 800 migrants have died this year trying to reach the Canaries.

In September, the islands experienced the worst shipwreck on record.

Sixty-three of 90 passengers are believed to have drowned.

Francisco Navarro, whose NGO runs a migrant center, says, it's difficult to understand the scale of the crisis.

"We are experiencing a humanitarian tragedy that has no precedent," he says.