Spanish authorities announced this Sunday the discovery of four deaths aboard a migrant boat carrying 34 people aboard the Canary Islands, with 29 passengers still missing.
A few hours earlier, during the night, a single survivor had been rescued by a merchant ship.
The NGO for the defense of migrants Caminando Fronteras reported that on September 24, a few hours after leaving the coast of Western Sahara, she received a distress call from the same boat, with 34 people on board.
Authorities are convinced that the 29 missing passengers were killed and swallowed by the ocean.
The boat was found by a Spanish maritime rescue team about 280 kilometers from the island of Gran Canaria.
According to Spanish government figures released on September 15, about 11,500 migrants have managed to cross Africa to the Canary Islands since the beginning of the year.
According to the organization Caminando Fronteras, 978 people were killed when they attempted the crossing.
At its shortest point, the Moroccan coast is just 100 kilometers from the Canary Islands, but most migrants come from further south, some from Mauritania, 1000 kilometers away.
The number of migrants attempting the crossing started to rise sharply from the end of 2019, when the increased presence of patrols in the Mediterranean reduced the number of crossings via this sea route.
Source: DN
