It is not what the authorities had expected, but far from putting people off, an invasion of African boat people has proved an unlikely tourist attraction in the Canary Islands where daily arrivals of dug-outs packed with immigrants attract crowds of spectators.

“I feel sorry for them really,” said Doug Berry, a retired train driver from Newcastle. “How could they have come all that way in a boat like that?” The latest arrival, a battered green and white wooden vessel, had appeared on the horizon on Friday morning. In what has become a routine operation, the coastguard escorted it into this tiny port in southern Tenerife where it disgorged its cargo for inspection by police and Red Cross workers.

First came those who could walk. They were escorted one by one to tents where they were given medical attention, water and a bag of new clothing. Others, exhausted by their ordeal, had to be carried onto the quay.

Almost 3,000 have arrived in the past week and local officials say they are overwhelmed. “We’ve got a big problem here,” said Luis Carrion, the provincial police chief as he watched the pathetic parade. Nearby, the immigrants’ old clothes were being tossed into rubbish containers ready for burning: popular belief has it that the Africans may bring with them contagious diseases.

The boat, believed to have come from Mauritania in west Africa, was led away to an anchorage in the port where it joined several similar African vessels amid a host of pleasure craft belonging to more fortunate sea-faring folk.

Tourists gathered to watch from a cafe terrace a few yards down the dock. Others filmed from the decks of ferries. A group of Germans engaged in a heated debate with police who stopped them from crossing a cordon to get a better view.

Seldom has this holiday playground borne witness to such a human drama. The latest to arrive on Friday — 84 men aged between 20 and 30 — were part of one of the biggest population shifts of the past few decades as the world’s poor head north in search of jobs and a better standard of living.

Like American pioneers of the gold rush, these African migrants face extremely perilous journeys. As the waters around the Canaries turned rougher on Friday evening there were fears for the safety of those still on their way: an estimated 1,000 Africans have been killed in shipwrecks in recent months as they attempted journeys of up to 1,000 miles.

One of the long Mauritanian vessels was spotted earlier this year by a fisherman 60 miles off the coast of Barbados in the West Indies. Inside were several Africans whose dead bodies had been mummified by the salt air. Most deaths are caused by drowning when overcrowded vessels are swamped by waves and capsize.

There are reports of passengers being beaten over the head with hammers if they move too much in high seas when there is a danger of capsizing. The journeys, by any standard, are a test of endurance.

“The sea was very frightening,” said Ed, a 22-year-old Gambian who had bowed in gratitude to a Red Cross worker handing him a new pair of shoes, a tracksuit and T-shirt. “Everything was very wet. Clothes, blanket. We were in the boat for eight days.”

He described how a meal of rice was somehow cooked each day on a primitive stove. It sounded like a forlorn hope, but when asked why he had wanted to come to Europe, he said he was a keen footballer who wanted a trial with Real Madrid.

He added that Europe appealed to him because “you are an interesting people”.

Europe does not seem to feel the same about people like Ed. However much Spain and other European countries may rely on immigration to keep their economies growing, most of the latest arrivals are likely to be sent home within 42 days.

The young Gambian did not seem unduly upset by that prospect even if he had paid £200 for his crossing. “Maybe I’ll try to come again,” he said.

Faced with such determination, European authorities will be hard-pressed to keep out the hordes: the sudden upsurge of arrivals in the Canaries — this year’s total of nearly 5,000 already surpasses that of 2005 — appears to be linked to a clampdown in the straits of Gibraltar, the traditional route into Europe from Africa.

This, it seems, has simply encouraged people to attempt the much more dangerous crossing from Mauritania or Senegal to the Canaries. Immigration to Spain may have been boosted by a government amnesty last year for 570,000 illegal immigrants, a move that angered other European states in the age of free borders.

Spanish judges have 42 days to make a case for the deportation of the latest arrivals. But if it cannot be proved which country they are from, immigrants can be released. No doubt they focus on that hope as they brave the Atlantic voyage.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Fish and chip shops ‘selling cobbler as cod’
• T in the Park festival at Kinross
• How to get Madonna’s Thighs