Authorities say more than 1,300 sub-Saharan African migrants reached Spain’s Canary Islands, a seven-island Atlantic archipelago, this weekend.

One vessel carried a record 321 people.

Another record was set earlier this month when 8,561 migrants arrived on the islands in the first two weeks of October. 

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has attributed the record number of arrivals to the political destabilization of the Sahel region where there have been several coups.

The migrants generally do not want to settle on the islands but are instead looking to create better lives for themselves and their families elsewhere in Europe or other places around the world.

Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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