Wooden boat carrying nearly 300 refugees reaches Spain's Canary Islands

A boat carrying 280 refugees has landed in Spain's Canary Islands, having crossed one of the most dangerous migratory routes in the Atlantic, a rescue organisation told the AFP news agency.

It marks the largest number of refugees to arrive on a single boat to the archipelago, the rescue group said on Tuesday.

The refugees consisted of 278 men, including 10 boys plus two women, and were of "sub-Saharan" origin, according to rescuers who aided them on their arrival.

Spain, and in particular the Canary archipelago off the coast of Africa, is one of the main gateways into Europe for irregular migrants and refugees.

Spanish media reports said the vessel reached the port of La Restinga on the small island of El Hierro, some 450 kilometres off the African coast.

On Tuesday alone, El Hierro saw some 500 migrants and refugees land on its shores.

Emergency services reported another boat arriving with 79 refugees, while 127 others were rescued from sea.

Journalist and former migration adviser in the regional government, Txema Santana, posted on X, formerly know as Twitter, that the boat arrived from Senegal.

"I've never seen a boat with so many people on board," he wrote.

Nearly 15,000 refugees in 2023

The Canaries saw 14,976 refugees arrive between January 1 and September 30, an increase of 19.8 percent compared with the same period in 2022, according to the latest figures from Spain's Interior Ministry.

In recent years, the migratory route to the Canary Islands has been particularly busy due to tighter controls in the Mediterranean.

Shipwrecks are frequent, as the crossing is particularly dangerous.

NGOs regularly report fatal shipwrecks in Moroccan, Spanish and international waters, with unofficial estimates putting the death toll in the dozens, if not hundreds.

Since the beginning of this year, 140 refugees have died or disappeared along this crossing, according to data from the International Organization for Migration [IOM] from early September.

The Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, which, unlike the IOM, relies on emergency calls from those at sea or their relatives, estimates that 778 refugees died or disappeared on this migration route in the first half of the year.