According to figures from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, 1,640 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands between January 1 and March 31 of this year. This represents an 82 percent decrease compared to the same period last year, when 9,424 migrants arrived.

For the whole of 2025, Spanish authorities had already recorded a 62 percent drop in arrivals to the Canary Islands compared to 2024, even though in recent years the archipelago had been the main Spanish destination for migrants.

But the strengthening of agreements between the European Union (EU) and Mauritania, Senegal, and Morocco -- the three main countries of departure for pirogues (wooden boats) bound for the Canary Islands -- in an attempt to stem crossings has increased controls and interceptions off the coast of West Africa.

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Ceuta, the primary point of entry for migrants into Spain

In this context, migration flows appear to have shifted. While arrivals in the Canary Islands have fallen sharply since January, other Spanish territories are raising the alarm about the increase in arrivals.

First and foremost, the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. "In recent months, the migratory pressure on Ceuta has been enormous," Rachid Sbihi, secretary general of the Unified Association of Civil Guards (AUGC) in the city, told InfoMigrants in mid-March.

Since January 1, more than 1,800 people have arrived on this small piece of Spanish territory located north of Morocco, which constitutes one of the EU’s only land borders in Africa (along with Melilla) – compared to only 340 at the same time in 2025. That’s an increase of more than 400 percent.

Arrivals in Ceuta have even surpassed those recorded in the Canary Islands this year, making the enclave the primary entry point for migrants into Spain in 2026.

"And these figures don't include those prevented from crossing. But every day, migrants try to enter Ceuta by land or sea," the union representative stated, calling for additional resources from Madrid to cope with the increase in arrivals.

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Balearic Islands overwhelmed

Another Spanish region is facing record arrivals. Since January 1, the Balearic Islands have seen 1,179 migrants land, compared to 954 during the same period last year. This represents a 23 percent increase.

And this comes even though last year, migrant arrivals in the Balearic Islands were already up 27 percent compared to 2024 projections.

"This summer in particular, it was chaos," Margalida Capellà, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and professor of international law, told InfoMigrants last October. "Boats were arriving almost every day. There were also corpses, missing persons. These are abnormal situations that we didn't see last year," added Carlos Martín Ciscar, spokesperson for the Acollim platform, a coalition of associations working to defend migrants. As a result, some migrants were forced to sleep on the streets of Palma de Mallorca.

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This route linking Algeria to the Spanish archipelago off the coast of Andalusia is not new, but the profile of the migrants has changed. Previously, the vast majority of those arriving in the Balearic Islands came from Algeria. Now, more and more sub-Saharan Africans are boarding the boats. In 2023, 73 percent of those arriving in the Balearic Islands were of North African origin. By 2025, this percentage had dropped to 30 percent, while the percentage of people from other African countries had reached 70 percent.

Here again, this is a direct consequence of the agreements concluded with Mauritania by the European Union and Spain. "This has encouraged migrants to head towards Algeria, where this surveillance is absent and where, moreover, the journey is shorter than that to the Canary Islands: they can be here in 15 hours and reach the European Union from Africa," according to Professor Margalida Capellà.

But this less-monitored route is not without risks. It was twice as deadly in 2025: according to the NGO Caminando Fronteras, 1,037 people who left Algeria for the Balearic Islands lost their lives last year, compared to 517 in 2024.

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