MADRID (Reuters) – At least one migrant drowned and 16 had been missing after their dinghy capsized within the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday evening some 35 km (22 miles) off the Spanish island of Fuerteventura, a authorities official instructed reporters on Thursday.
Emergency providers rescued and transported about 41 individuals from the semi-sunken dinghy. The Coast Guard discovered one lifeless physique at sea.
Teresa Mayans, deputy head of the central authorities’s illustration on the Canary Islands, instructed a information convention that some survivors had reported on arrival that 16 of their fellow travellers had been missing at sea.
The Spanish islands off the coast of West Africa have change into the principle vacation spot for migrants making an attempt to succeed in Europe, and final yr was one of many busiest for such crossings previously decade, in response to inside ministry knowledge.
A complete of twenty-two,316 migrants arrived within the Canaries illegally in 2021, in contrast with 23,271 the earlier yr.
Walking Borders rights group mentioned greater than 4,400 migrants, together with at the least 205 youngsters, had been misplaced at sea making an attempt to succeed in Spain in 2021, greater than double the determine from 2020 and probably the most because the group started counting in 2018.
(Reporting by Corina Pons and Borja Suarez; Editing by David Gregorio)
