A boat that can carry “about 200” migrants located off the Canary Islands

A boat that can carry around 200 migrants was located off the Canary Islands on Monday July 10. It would correspond to that which left Senegal almost two weeks ago, specify the Spanish rescuers. “We cannot confirm it 100% yet but it is likely that it is the same”told AFP a spokeswoman for Salvamento Maritimo.

According to this spokesperson, a ship left the Canary archipelago to rescue this boat, located 71 nautical miles (130 km) south of the island of Gran Canaria, and should take several hours to bring them back to shore. ‘archipelago. At the request of the Spanish authorities, a merchant ship also set sail for the area where the boat was located.

According to the NGO Caminando Fronteras, which gets its information from calls from migrants or their relatives, the boat sought left on June 27 from the Senegalese town of Kafountine, located about 1,700 kilometers from the coast of the Canaries. “The families informed us of the disappearance of the boat which they had not heard from for several days” and “we alerted the Spanish and Moroccan emergency services”, reports the founder of this NGO, Helena Maleno, in an audio message. According to Caminando Fronteras, two other boats that left Senegal on June 23 are also missing with around 120 people on board in total.