Logbook / Western African route / Canary IslandsEU data to Sep 2026, news to 7 Nov 2026
El Hierro took in 8,000 people in five weeks. The EU counted 7,231 on the whole Canary route in nine months.
The island council of El Hierro, population about 11,000, declared a social emergency on 7 November 2026. The reason the two numbers are so far apart is not a contradiction. It is a calendar, and you can test it below.
Whole Canary route, January to September 2026. Frontex, detections of illegal border crossing, data as of 4 Nov 2026
7,231
El Hierro alone, last five weeks. Island council figure ("more than 8,000 people"), reported by RTVE on 7 Nov 2026
8,000+
Different measures and periods: Frontex counts detections (one person can be counted twice) and its latest month is September; the council counts people who arrived over roughly the five weeks to 7 November. Read the bars as scale, not as an exact ratio.
1 / Every month since 2019
The route has a season, and it is not summer
Monthly Frontex detections on the Western African route, one line per year. Tap or drag on the chart to read a month. Toggle years to compare.
2 / The last quarter decides the year
In 2020 and 2023, October to December brought more than 60% of the whole year
January to SeptemberOctober to December
The range is wide: from 20% (2022) to 70% (2020). That is why a nine-month total says little about the full year.
3 / Your estimate against history
How many detections will EU data show for October to December 2026?
Frontex has not published October yet. Set your guess for the three months and see what year it would make.
8,000
030,000
This is arithmetic on your own guess (January to September 2026 plus your number), not a forecast. For scale: the El Hierro council figure alone, 8,000 people in five weeks, is higher than all of October to December 2025 in the Frontex data (5,012).
4 / Who is on the route
Mali led in 2024. In 2026 it is fourth.
All monthly figures (Frontex, Western African route)
Sources
Frontex, Migratory map, detections of illegal border crossing, file "EUROSUR data as of 04NOV26", monthly data January 2009 to September 2026. Western African route = Canary Islands. Frontex notes that the data count detections, not persons, and are updated as member states report. I summed route rows by month. primary
RTVE, "El Hierro declara la emergencia social ante la llegada de nuevos cayucos", 7 Nov 2026, and "El Gobierno convoca a Clavijo a la Comision Interministerial de Inmigracion", 7 Nov 2026 (translated from Spanish). Source of the "more than 8,000 people in five weeks" figure, attributed to the Cabildo of El Hierro, and of the meeting set for Tuesday 10 Nov. secondary, news report
NOS, "Noodtoestand op Canarisch eiland El Hierro: 3000 migranten in een week", NOS RSS feed read 8 Nov 2026 (translated from Dutch). Island population about 11,000. secondary, news report
The Spanish Interior Ministry statistics site refused automated access (HTTP 403), so no Spanish official arrival counts are used. The El Hierro figure has not been checked against them.