Malaga province towns assist almost 300 migrants who arrived on El Hierro island in boat

The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration is referring some of the new arrivals to different locations on the mainland to ease the pressure on the Canary Islands support services. The situation has led the government to declare a migration emergency in the Canary Islands and step up care resources.

The Red Cross is managing most of the transfers to Malaga, providing care to 275 people, as provincial coordinator Samuel Linares told Sur on Thursday. They are mainly young men from Senegal, although there are also women and children.

The Red Cross has two centres in Malaga city and another in Torrox, at the Urban Beach hotel in El Morche, where it has been running a special emergency response unit since October 2023. Of the 275 people, around 200 are at the Torrox centre and the rest in Malaga city.

The CEAR (Spanish commission for refugee aid) has also begun to receive new arrivals from the Canary Islands, albeit in considerably smaller numbers. Its provincial coordinator, Francisco Cansino, has put the number at 17, with a further 15 expected to join them over the coming days.

The organisation has a capacity of 835 places across its facilities in Malaga city and Antequera, from which it provides accommodation and specialist support. The CEAR figures provided, combined with those from the Red Cross, bring the total number of people the two organisations are currently assisting in the province to around 292, which could exceed 300 once the forthcoming transfers announced take place.

This situation is a result of the significant increase in arrivals recorded over recent weeks along the Atlantic route. According to El Hierro authorities, more than 8,000 people disembarked on the island between early October and 6 November, a particularly significant figure for a territory with a population of just over 12,000.

The Canary Islands regional government also recorded 7,432 arrivals across the archipelago during the first ten days of this month. The strain on health, police and support services led El Hierro to declare a social emergency on 6 November, calling on the central government for additional resources and greater coordination to transfer the new arrivals to other territories.

In Malaga, one of the key precedents was in El Morche. In October 2023, the central government set up the Urban Beach hotel to accommodate some 240 sub-Saharan migrants from the Canary Islands, who had arrived by coach after travelling by plane to Madrid. That initial intake was followed by successive expansions and new arrivals over the following years.

According to a report Sur published in October 2025, some 1,600 people had already passed through these facilities in their first two years of operation, making the establishment one of the main centres for humanitarian care in the Axarquía.

The arrival of more migrants at the reception centres has prompted a reaction from Mayor of Torrox Óscar Medina, who has once again criticised the Ministry of Inclusion for failing to inform the town hall in advance of the movement of people to the facility in El Morche.

"Once again, they haven't told me anything," the mayor told Sur on Thursday. Since the centre opened, he has maintained a critical stance regarding the lack of communication which, according to him, exists between the central government and the local authority. Medina believes that the town hall should be informed in advance of decisions affecting this facility, located in one of the municipality's main tourist centres.

The mayor also linked this situation to the immigration policy of PM Pedro Sánchez's government and called for a change in the approach to managing arrivals. "When Feijóo becomes prime minister, this situation will change. These things will not happen. The law will be enforced, we will act in coordination with the EU and Frontex will be activated," Medina stated. His comments come against a backdrop of growing migratory pressure on the Canary Islands and political debate regarding the regional distribution of reception resources.

The mayor's criticisms are nothing new. In June, Medina asked the central government to clarify the future of the El Morche emergency centre and called for a solution for migrants who were sleeping in public spaces within the municipality, including reed beds, beaches and areas beneath infrastructure.

The town hall stressed the need to guarantee decent accommodation conditions and improve institutional coordination. The mayor also called at the time for clarity on the timeframe for a facility that was set up as an emergency solution and which continues to operate more than three years after it opened.

The Red Cross runs a social support and mentoring programme in El Morche, which includes Spanish lessons, guidance on how public services work and job training. In the report from October 2025, Samuel Linares explained that more than 160 of the 362 people then residing at the centre had secured a job. According to Linares, the centre operated "without any incidents".

The Spanish government has meanwhile announced an increase in the resources available to tackle the migration emergency in the Canary Islands, with an additional 15.18 million euros earmarked to strengthen reception centres and facilitate transfers between the islands and the mainland. It has also allocated special funds for healthcare and the Red Cross' first-response services.

In Malaga, humanitarian organisations continue to assist people referred from the archipelago, while CEAR is preparing for the arrival of a further 15 people over the coming days. The continued operation of the El Morche facility, the possible increase in referrals and coordination with Torrox town hall remain among the outstanding issues in the management of the reception system in the Axarquía.

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