The migratory route that passes through the Canary Islands to reach Spain has been increasingly used since the tightening of controls in the Mediterranean Sea.
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The Spanish authorities announced, Thursday, June 22, to have rescued more than 150 migrants in three boats drifting off the Canary Islands, the day after a deadly shipwreck which left at least two dead. Since the tightening of controls in the Mediterranean, the migratory route to the Spanish archipelago, located in the Atlantic off the coast of northwestern Africa, is increasingly taken. Shipwrecks are common here, and the crossing can be particularly dangerous due to the strong currents and the condition of the boats.
“During the night, the emergency services took care of 114 migrants who were traveling on board two rescued boats” by the Spanish sea rescuers. These migrants were taken care of on the island of Lanzarote and on that of Gran Canaria where “a baby and his mother [ont été] transferred to hospital for mild pathologies”. A third boat was rescued at dawn and its 54 passengers brought back to Lanzarote.
More than 11,000 dead since 2018
These new rescues come the day after a deadly shipwreck about 160 km off the coast of the island of Gran Canaria. Spanish sea rescuers, who initially announced that they had recovered the body of a minor, told AFP that they had located another body, that of a man. The 24 people who were rescued on Wednesday by the Moroccan authorities were brought to Morocco, according to a spokeswoman for the Spanish rescuers, who assured that she had no information on the missing following the shipwreck.
The Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras, which draws up its assessments based in particular on the testimonies of migrants or their families, said for its part on Wednesday that a total of 39 people had died in this shipwreck. “including four women and a baby”. She assures us that the boat had been asking to be rescued from “more than twelve hours”.
In a report made public at the end of 2022, Caminando Fronteras claimed that more than 11,200 migrants had died or disappeared since 2018 trying to reach Spain, which is one of the main gateways for illegal immigration in Spain. Europe. That’s an average of six a day.