What changes for visitors and residents on El Hierro?
As far as anyone knew by Friday 6 November 2026, visitors and residents face no official restrictions. Neither the BOC (the Canaries’ official gazette) nor the Cabildo (island government) announced closures, price changes or deadlines.
The action is all at La Restinga, the port where the boats dock. Emergency teams, Cruz Roja (Red Cross) and Salvamento Marítimo (sea rescue service) register the new arrivals there.
Residents and businesses want the processing moved away from the port, which is also a diving and tourist destination. No decision had been taken as of April 2025, and earlier undated reports mention a reception point about 400 metres away.
Senator Javier Armas says a single boat can block the island’s health services. If you have a medical appointment on El Hierro, ask the centre in advance about delays.
What exactly did Clavijo say?
Clavijo spoke at the “XXX Conferencia de Presidentes RUP” in Guadalupe. The date of the conference is not stated.
He expects the situation on El Hierro to worsen, and recalled 2024, when he said 47,000 people reached the Canaries. He presented no current figures for 2026.
Clavijo has sent his letter again to Pedro Sánchez, president of the Spanish government, and asks for an urgent meeting. He described Madrid’s latest reply as a mere list of things already done.
Clavijo wants agreements from the migration pact turned into concrete action. He says the government is not a caretaker one and must keep working until a new one is formed.
How many boats and people reach El Hierro?
El Hierro took 3,515 (48.96%) of the 7,179 boat arrivals in the Canaries from 1 January to 30 September 2026, emergency services say. They came in 31 boats, an average of 113 people per cayuco (boat used for the crossing).
Lanzarote took in 2,133 people in 41 boats over the same period. Together, the two islands received 5,648 people, about 79% of all arrivals.
October brought a sharp rise. By 25 October, according to provisional figures from the Gobierno de Canarias, 3,814 people had reached the Canaries, 2,776 of them on El Hierro.
On 22 October, reports say, 451 people arrived in four cayucos, and 566 in four boats on 23 October. On 25 October a cayuco carrying 125 people reached La Restinga under its own power.
On 30 October a cayuco that had set out with 115 people was found about 68 kilometres south of La Restinga. Only 111 of them survived.
The survivors reported four deaths. Two bodies were recovered.
Why is Clavijo raising the alarm when fewer people are arriving in 2026 than in 2025?
From 1 January to 15 October 2026 the Interior Ministry counted 8,970 arrivals in the Canaries, against 13,491 a year earlier. That is a fall of 33.5%, compared with 67.2% at mid-year.
The first 15 days of October look very different. The ministry counted 1,837 arrivals, up from 643 in the same period of 2025, a rise of 185%.
El Hierro has about 11,000 residents, and in January 2024 alone the Cabildo reported 50 cayucos carrying 3,650 people. Cabildo president Alpidio Armas said the island was then overwhelmed in daily life.
The Canaries are the only major sea route still showing a fall. The Interior Ministry reports 22,453 sea arrivals in Spain up to 15 October (down 12.9%), while the Balearics rose 10.4% and the mainland 9.25%.
Who is responsible and who pays?
Clavijo wrote on 28 October 2026 to Pilar Cancela at the Spanish State Secretariat for Migration, because initial reception is the state’s job. He calls for an extraordinary health programme in all CATEs (centres for the temporary reception of foreigners).
The money should come from the state Programa de Atención Humanitaria. The El Hierro CATE should have its own doctors and nurses, so that no staff are pulled from the Hospital Insular.
Clavijo also wants space cleared and asphalted at the La Restinga pier, with a neighbouring plot made available. On top of that, he calls for Frontex in the Canaries and “sufficient state funding”.
Cabildo president Alpidio Armas says the island can cope with the current situation, which Clavijo disputes. On 4 April 2025 Minister Ángel Víctor Torres said the state was looking for land at the port.
Torres added that the state was considering an urgent expropriation, because the state and the private owners had not reached an agreement. Destroying retired cayucos, the other big bill, had cost almost 6.5 million euros by April 2025, with the work due to continue in 2025.
What happens after arrival, and what comes next?
Most people leave El Hierro within 72 hours, according to media reports. From the pier they go to the CATE in San Andrés (Valverde), which has no official capacity figure.
About 900 people moved on to Tenerife and Gran Canaria between 23 and 25 October. Anselmo Pestana, the Spanish government’s delegate in the Canaries, put the rise down to calm seas.
The Gobierno de Canarias asked the state for an extraordinary emergency plan, more funding for Salvamento Marítimo and extra health staff in the CATEs. An unofficial count puts the October death toll at no fewer than eight.
Nobody has set a date for a meeting with Sánchez. No reply to the new letter had been found by Friday.