Authorities on El Hierro, one of Spain's Canary Islands, have declared an emergency and asked the national government for help after a sharp rise in people arriving by boat from West Africa.

More than 3,300 people have reached the island in about 30 boats since the start of November, according to local authorities. El Hierro has about 11,400 residents. The island's governing council, the Cabildo de El Hierro, formalised the emergency by decree on Friday, 6 November, citing more than 8,000 arrivals over the previous five weeks. Its president, Alpidio Armas, told Spanish television on Saturday that the declaration was meant to set up a framework of cooperation with higher levels of government.

"We are very concerned by this sharp increase in arrivals," Armas said. The island is asking higher levels of government to share responsibility for reception and care. The declaration is a social emergency: it is not a national state of emergency and does not by itself prove that particular spending or powers have been granted.

The pressure on local services is severe. The island's hospital has expanded emergency care into an assembly hall, and its manager has described the facilities as completely saturated. Medical staff have been brought in from other islands, buses have been diverted to migration operations, and about 700 people have been moved onward to Tenerife. Fernando Clavijo, the regional leader of the Canary Islands, described the situation as "absolutely unsustainable" and said arrivals were approaching the record pace of 2024.

Maritime rescue services rescued 3,261 people off the Canary Islands in the first six days of November, and the regional government counted 49 boats carrying about 4,587 people to the archipelago between 1 and 6 November, 35 of them to El Hierro. The Atlantic route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the world's deadliest migration crossings. Spain's Interior Ministry recorded 13,327 irregular sea arrivals in the Canary Islands between January and October, 5.5 percent fewer than in the same period last year, and the annual record stands at more than 46,000 in 2024. Spain's government has convened an urgent meeting of its Interministerial Immigration Commission for Tuesday, 10 November, to coordinate the response.