The sinking of a migrant boat in the Canaries left nine dead and 48 missing, Spanish authorities announced this Saturday, who managed to rescue 27 people alive. The boat sank on Friday night near El Hierro, one of the islands in the Spanish Canary archipelago.
All 84 occupants of the vessel were men and one of the bodies recovered was that of a teenager between 12 and 15 years old, sources from the island’s emergency services told the Spanish agency EFE.
It was the vessel’s occupants themselves who alerted the emergency services to the location where they were, and the rescue took place during the night.
A family member of one of the passengers told the Spanish non-governmental organization (NGO) Caminando Fronteras that the 84 people left Mauritania towards the Canary Islands. THEIn addition to several teenagers, there were at least four children aged between 7 and 11 on the boat.
Members of the Guardia Civil and Maritime Rescue were this Saturday morning in the Las Playas area looking for more bodies.
Thousands of migrants have lost their lives in recent years while attempting the dangerous Atlantic route to Europe from Africa, mainly through the Canaries, aboard overcrowded vessels that are often in poor condition.
At the end of August, Spain signed agreements with Mauritania and Gambia to reinforce cooperation against smugglers of illegal migrants to Europe and in favor of regulated migration. Since the beginning of the year, and theBy August 15, 22,304 migrants had arrived in the Canaries, compared to 9,864 in the same period in 2023, which represents an increase of 126%.
The route between Africa and the Canaries is a true “route of death”, as crossings are made aboard overcrowded rafts that are poorly equipped to resist the very strong currents in that part of the Atlantic. Some of the vessels depart from a distance of up to a thousand kilometers from the Canaries.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a UN agency, at least 4,857 people have died or disappeared on this sea route since 2014. But the real number will be much higher. Caminando Fronteras, which assesses the number of victims based on testimonies from survivors, calculates that 18,680 people died trying to reach Europe.
