(CNN)Elementary school children don't typically venture far from home on their own, but 11-year-old Abou managed to cross a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean, from Africa to Europe, in the hands of strangers.
Abou, from West Africa's Ivory Coast, boarded an inflatable dinghy alongside four other children, and a mother and her baby, all bound for the Canary Islands, in search of a better life. They arrived on the island of Fuerteventura in June 2020 after a full day's journey from southern Morocco.
For years, migrants and refugees from sub-Saharan Africa have followed a well-worn path north, boarding traffickers' boats in Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria to take them across the Mediterranean to Spain and Italy.
But as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and measures taken to prevent the spread of the virus, many of the traditional migrant routes through Africa have been disrupted, making the Canary Islands -- an autonomous Spanish territory some 70 miles (110 km) off the coast of north-western Africa -- the new gateway for many trying to make a fresh start in Europe.
Spain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs says around 23,000 migrants arrived in the Canary Islands from Africa in 2020 -- more than seven times the number of arrivals in 2019. And almost 2,600 of them were, like Abou, unaccompanied minors -- more than three times 2019's numbers -- Ca