Flood of boat people

Canary Islands, Spain

More than 1,400 illegal African immigrants landed on Spain’s Canary Islands over just two days last week. The immigrants made their desperate and dangerous voyage from West Africa jammed into wooden boats for days. Two other boatloads, with an unknown number of passengers, didn’t make it. The new arrivals bring the total of immigrants who have arrived in the Canaries so far this year to 22,000—more than five times the number that came in all of 2005. Spain is appealing to other E.U. countries to help it patrol its coasts, saying keeping illegals out of the E.U. is every member country’s responsibility. “The wind of tragedy is blowing toward the Canary Islands,” said the islands’ president, Adan Martin.