Migrant crisis in Canary Isles

The coronavirus pandemic had already hit international travel, leaving spare rooms to house migrants temporarily.

Puerto Rico: In a normal year, it would be high tourist season for the Canary Islands, but a huge influx of migrants has given the archipelago “a bad image,” bar owner Miguel Gonzalez grumbles.

With migrant reception centres completely swamped after the arrival of more than 18,000 people this year — 10 times the number in 2019 — many have been put up in hotels and tourist apartments.

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The coronavirus pandemic had already hit international travel, leaving spare rooms to house migrants temporarily.

“I have a client who’s going to sue his travel agency. They never told him that Puerto Rico was full of migrants. He went to the beach and there were groups of 15 or 20 of them not wearing masks,” the bar owner said.

Normally Puerto Rico’s springlike climate during high season draws up to 25,000 visitors, mostly from Scandinavia. In their place are some 1,500 migrants staying at hotels perched on its steep hillsides.

The migrant crisis has compounded the misery for the islands’ embattled tourism sector, which accounts for 35 percent of the Canaries’ GDP and had been hoping to claw back some of its losses after a year blighted by the pandemic.