Madrid - The thousands of African would-be immigrants arriving on Spain's Canary Islands include increasing numbers of children, the daily El Pais reported Friday.

The number of unaccompanied minors arriving annually has risen from a few hundred in 2000 to more than 700 by 2007. Children as young as 9 years old have been amongst the arrivals.

Reception centres on the islands now house 1,200 minors, more than twice as many as facilities there are designed to care for. Local authorities have called on the government to take most of the children to the Spanish mainland.

The overall number of migrants landing on the Canaries, however, has gone down from 31,000 in 2006 to 17,000 in 2007. The decrease is attributed mainly to maritime frontier patrols in cooperation with African countries, and repatriations of undocumented immigrants. (dpa)