As many as 50 persons are thought to have died after a ship sure for the Canary Islands received into difficulties after a 13-day voyage alongside the perilous Atlantic migration route from west Africa.
The migration NGO Caminando Fronteras (Strolling Borders) mentioned the boat set off from Mauritania on 2 January carrying 86 individuals. It mentioned it alerted the Moroccan and Spanish authorities after receiving studies that the boat was in hassle, and that Moroccan rescuers had managed to save lots of 36 individuals. However 50 of these onboard, most of them from Pakistan, are feared drowned.
“Fifty people have died on a boat headed for the Canary Islands, 44 of whom were Pakistani,” the charity’s CEO, Helena Maleno, wrote on X. “They spent 13 agonising days at sea without rescuers reaching them.”
The regional president of the Canary Islands supplied his condolences and renewed his requires motion because the Spanish archipelago continues to obtain document numbers of migrants and refugees who arrive by sea.
“We can’t just be witnesses to all this,” Fernando Clavijo wrote on X. “The state and Europe need to act. The Atlantic can’t carry on being the graveyard of Africa. We can’t keep turning our back on the humanitarian drama.”
Spain’s maritime rescue service, Salvamento Marítimo, mentioned it had no data on the incident, however added that it had performed an aerial search after receiving an alert on 10 January a few boat that had set out from Nouakchott in Mauritania.
“We cannot say whether that was the same shipwreck,” a spokesperson mentioned.
Final yr, 46,843 individuals reached the Canaries on the more and more perilous Atlantic route, up from 39,910 in 2023.
In keeping with a current report from Caminando Fronteras, not less than 10,457 individuals died or disappeared whereas attempting to succeed in Spain by sea from 1 January to five December 2024.
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The NGO mentioned the dying toll was a 50% enhance on 2023 and the best since its tallies started in 2007. It attributed the rise to the usage of ramshackle boats, harmful waters and a scarcity of sources for rescuers.
Frontex, the EU border and coastguard company, mentioned whereas irregular crossings on the central Mediterranean route dropped by 59% final yr due to a lower in departures from Tunisia and Libya, crossings to the Canaries rose by 18%. It mentioned the rise was “fuelled by departures from Mauritania, even as flows from other departure points declined”.
