Photo credit: France 24
Spain’s Canary Islands are facing renewed pressure from migrant arrivals, with authorities declaring a migrant emergency this week following a sharp increase in crossings. Against this backdrop, a claim has been spreading rapidly on social media, warning of an imminent “invasion” of the archipelago by migrants from Mauritania.
France 24 reports that at the centre of the claim is a video showing someone examining satellite images on a mobile phone. The images appear to show thousands of boats packed closely together at the port of Nouadhibou, in northwestern Mauritania.
Multiple social media users have presented the footage as “proof” that thousands of migrant boats are preparing to set sail towards the Spanish coast. One post, which described the images as “irrefutable evidence” of an imminent mass crossing, attracted more than 1.5 million views in just 48 hours.
But while the satellite images are genuine, the claims being made about them are misleading.
Using Google Earth, it was discovered that the exact location shown in the video is the port of Nouadhibou, a coastal city in Mauritania. However, checking the dates of the satellite imagery revealed that the images shared online date back to March 2025. They are not recent images showing boats gathering ahead of a mass departure.
