Dozens of migrants on their way to Canary Islands feared dead when boat sinks
Thirty-six migrants were feared dead after an inflatable boat bound for the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of northwest Africa, sank on Wednesday, according to an aid agency.
At least one child’s body has been recovered, according to the aid organization Caminando Fronteras, a non-governmental organization that monitors the deaths of migrants. The group said 24 people had been rescued, but dozens remained missing of the 61 people who had been on the ship.
According to a Twitter message from Helena Maleno Garzón, founder of Caminando Fronteras: “The inflatable has been begging for rescue in Spanish waters for over twelve hours.”
Maritime Rescue, Spain’s maritime search and rescue agency, did not immediately respond to several requests for comment.
The agency did post information on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, apparently about the same episode, which said that two people on board an inflatable boat had died off the coast of Morocco and that a Moroccan patrol boat had rescued 24.
The inflatable vessel en route to the Canary Islands sank just days after as many as 650 migrants drowned when an overloaded fishing boat capsized off the coast of Greece a week ago.
That disaster has brought renewed attention to the rising number of deaths of people trying to reach Europe from the Middle East and North Africa, and to how European countries deal with people and smugglers crossing the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. .
In the case near Greece, investigators are trying to figure out exactly what happened to the boat — whether smugglers refused help and panic led to it capsizing, as the coastguard claims, or whether a failed attempt to tow the ship caused it to collapse. ship sank, as some survivors claim.
In the case on Wednesday, rights groups and other observers were already asking questions about the Spanish and Moroccan reactions. The Spanish newspaper El País reported that the boat had been spotted by a plane belonging to the Spanish authorities on Tuesday evening, but those rescue operations by the Moroccan authorities did not start until 6.20 am on Wednesday, more than 10 hours later.
Migration routes between West Africa and Spain, crossing both the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, have been among the most dangerous in recent years. In 2022 alone, Caminando Fronteras said yes confirmed the deaths of 2,390 people on their way to Europe on those routes, including 1,784 victims on the route between Africa and the Canary Islands.
The Spanish authorities said this on Tuesday pregnant woman had died trying to reach the Canary Islandsafter her body was found on a dinghy carrying about 50 migrants.
By mid-June, nearly 6,000 migrants had arrived in the Canary Islands in inflatable boats, the report said. Spanish government data.
International observers have observed an increase in the number of attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea and the number of deaths. Nearly 3,800 migrants died on routes within and from the Middle East and North Africa last year, according to the International Organization for Migration — the highest death toll in five years.