Nine people are confirmed drowned and at least 48 are missing after a boat carrying migrants capsized off Spain’s Canary Islands overnight, rescue services said on Saturday, the latest in a series of such disasters off the west coast of Africa.
Sea rescue teams in a statement said they had answered a distress call off El Hierro, one of the islands in the Atlantic archipelago, shortly after midnight. They managed to save 27 people out of 84 on board.
Spanish Government Delegate in the Canary Islands Anselmo Pestana said survivors had told their rescuers that the boat had set off from Nuadibu in Mauritania, about 800km away.
Photo: AFP
They also suggested that there might have been as many as 90 people on board. Four of those rescued were minors, he added.
The most critical part of the operation was when the rescue vessels approached the boat in distress because it was vital that those on board the stricken craft stay calm, he told journalists.
They had to follow the instructions of the rescue crews to ensure their vessel stayed balanced and did not capsize, he added.
However, as the migrants had gone two days without food or water, that probably contributed to the panic and the boat capsizing, he said.
Five ships, three helicopters and one plane had taken part in the search and rescue operation, he added.
This disaster follows the death of 39 migrants earlier this month when their boat sank off Senegal while attempting a similar crossing to the Canaries, from where migrants hope to reach mainland Europe.
Thousands of migrants have died in recent years setting off into the Atlantic to reach Europe onboard overcrowded and often dilapidated boats.
The latest incident “again underlines the dangerousness of the Atlantic route,” Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo wrote on X.
“We need Spain and the EU to act decisively in the face of a structural humanitarian tragedy” as lives are lost “meters from Europe’s southern border,” he added.
Late last month, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited Mauritania and The Gambia to sign cooperation agreements to crack down on people smugglers while expanding legal means of immigration.
As of Aug. 15, 22,304 migrants have reached the Canaries since the start of the year, up from 9,864 in the same period the previous year.
Almost 40,000 migrants entered the Canaries last year, a record on course to be broken this year, as easier navigation conditions from September tend to lead to a spike in crossing attempts.
The Atlantic route is particularly deadly, with many of the crowded and poorly equipped boats unable to cope with the strong ocean currents. Some boats set off from African beaches as far as 1,000km from the Canaries.
The International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, estimates that 4,857 people have died on this route since 2014.
Many aid organizations say that is a massive underestimate. Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish non-governmental organization that aids migrants, says 18,680 have died trying to reach Europe.
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