Rescuers said four bodies were found in a migrant boat off the coast of the Canary Islands on Sunday, hours after one survivor was rescued, while an NGO said the boat had set sail with 34 people on board.
Spain’s coast guard, Salvamento Maritimo, reported on Twitter that they had found the “bodies of four people” who were in a boat 150 nautical miles southwest of Gran Canaria when a passing merchant ship capsized. He saved a person on Saturday. Shab, who is the only survivor who was later evacuated in the plane. helicopter
Helena Malino, director of the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, which helps migrant boats at sea and families looking for loved ones, said on Twitter that authorities received a call about a problem a week ago after the same boat set sail. There were 34 people in the Western Sahara at that time.
“On September 24, we received an alert about a boat that left the coast south of Al-Ayoun at dawn that day,” he said, noting that rescue teams had been notified.
He added that after a week of breaking news, a boat was spotted south of the Canary Islands carrying a 26-year-old exhausted man and four bodies… Late at night we found out that the same boat had disappeared. with 34 passengers.
“This is a new tragedy on one of the most dangerous migration routes for life – the Canary Islands,” he said, adding that there were “another 33 victims”.
He explained that “only four bodies were found… the rest of the victims, totaling 29, were swallowed up by the ocean. Their families will suffer terrible grief in the absence of bodies to say goodbye to.”
According to data published by the Ministry of Interior on September 15, since the beginning of this year, 11,522 migrants have crossed the dangerous Atlantic Ocean route to Spain’s Canary Islands, which is slightly more than the same period last year.
There are no official figures for those who have died on the road, but data from Caminando Fronteras says that 978 people died trying to reach Spain in the first six months of the year, 938 of them drowned or lost at sea.
Source: Lebanon Debate
