Hundreds protested on Saturday in the Canary Islands against an influx of migrants to the Spanish archipelago, which has welcomed more than 19,000 migrants since the beginning of 2024.
Located off the coast of north-west Africa, the Canary Islands have become an increasingly popular destination for people braving the perilous Atlantic crossing in the hope of finding a better life in Europe.
Carrying “Defend our neighbourhoods” and “Stop illegal immigration” placards, the demonstrators took to the streets of towns including Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, with local media putting their numbers at several hundreds.
“This situation in the Canaries is unbearable,” Juan Manuel Garcia, who took part in the demonstration in Tenerife, told AFPTV. “The Canaries don’t have the means to support those who arrive,” the 70-year-old added.
Rudy Ruyman, who helped organise the demonstration, said the situation had become “a traffic in human lives”, warning that “the mafia is profiting from all the deaths at sea”.
Several lawyers had asked the public prosecutor’s office to ban the demonstrations on the grounds they could constitute a hate crime. But the authorities did not act on that request, according to local media.
Spain is one of the three main entry points for migrants coming to Europe, along with Italy and Greece.
Until 30 June, 19,257 migrants arrived by sea in the Canary Islands aboard 297 boats, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior – up from 7,213 aboard 150 boats in the same period last year.
In 2023, nearly 40,000 migrants arrived in the archipelago, compared with 15,600 in 2022, surpassing the record set in 2006.
Although the Atlantic route is especially dangerous, it is becoming increasingly popular because it is less closely monitored than the Mediterranean.
On Saturday, a new vessel with 56 people on board arrived on the small island of El Hierro, in the south-west of the Canaries. One of the 56 was found dead, the emergency services said.
More than 5,000 people died trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of the year, equivalent to 33 deaths a day, Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras reported in June. The vast majority of those deaths happened en route to the Canary Islands.
Also on Saturday, thousands of protesters marched in Barcelona to denounce mass tourism and its effect on Spain’s most visited city, the latest in a series of similar marches in the country.
Under the slogan “Enough! Let’s put limits on tourism”, 2,800 people, according to police, marched along a waterfront district in Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists that visit every year.
“I have nothing against tourism, but here in Barcelona we are suffering from an excess of tourism that has made our city unliveable,” said Jordi Guiu, a 70-year-old sociologist.
With banners saying “Reduce tourism now!”, the protesters chanted slogans such as “Tourists out of our neighbourhood”, stopping in front of hotels to the surprise of visitors.
Barcelona’s rising cost of housing, up 68% in the past decade according to local authorities, is one of the main issues for the movement, along with the effects of tourism on local commerce and working conditions in the city of 1.6 million inhabitants.
“Local shops are closing to make way for stores that do not serve the needs of neighbourhoods. People cannot afford their rents,” said Isa Miralles, a 35-year-old musician who lives in the Barceloneta district.
The north-eastern coastal city, with internationally famous sites such as La Sagrada Familia, received more than 12 million tourists last year, according to local authorities.
To combat the “negative effects of mass tourism”, the city council run by the socialist Jaume Collboni announced 10 days ago that it was banning tourist apartment rentals – there are now more than 10,000 – by 2028 so that they can be put back on the local housing market.
The announcement could lead to a legal battle and is opposed by an association of tourist apartments who say it will just feed the hidden market.
The Barcelona protests come after similar demonstrations in tourist hotspots such as Málaga, Palma de Mallorca and the Canary Islands.
The second most visited country after France, Spain received 85 million foreign visitors in 2023, an increase of 18.7% from the previous year, according to the National Statistics Institute.
The most visited region was Catalonia, including its capital Barcelona, with 18 million, followed by the Balearic Islands (14.4 million) and the Canary Islands (13.9 million).