At least 9 dead and 48 missing in migrant boat sinking off Canary Islands

The sinking of a migrant boat off the coast of the Canaries, in Spain, left at least 9 dead and 48 missing during the night from Friday to Saturday, Spanish maritime rescue announced on Saturday September 28. The shipwreck took place approximately 7 km south of the port of La Estaca, on the island of El Hierro, one of the islands of the Spanish archipelago.

In all, 84 people were present on the boat, from where a call for help was made around 12:15 a.m. in the night. 27 people were rescued, according to the Spanish maritime rescue press release. The ship that set out to rescue the shipwrecked people noticed upon arriving in the area that the boat “had capsized”.

At the beginning of September, the sinking of a migrant boat trying to reach Europe had already left at least 39 dead off the coast of Senegal. Thousands of migrants have lost their lives in recent years attempting the perilous Atlantic route to Europe from Africa, mainly via the Spanish archipelago of the Canaries, aboard crowded and often dilapidated boats.

At the end of August, Spain signed agreements with Mauritania and the Gambia to strengthen cooperation against smugglers of illegal migrants to Europe and in favor of regulated migration, during a tour by the Spanish Prime Minister. As of August 15, 22,304 migrants had arrived in the Canaries since the start of the year, compared to 9,864 for the same period in 2023, an increase of 126%.