At least 28 people disappeared last night in the Atlantic hours before a Spanish Maritime Rescue plane found the inflatable boat with which they were trying to reach the Canary Islands, with only 13 people clinging to its side floats, according to these survivors.
Two different sources from the relief services confirmed to Efe this Monday that the 13 people rescued today 120 kilometers south of the island of Gran Canaria (12 men and one adolescent, all sub-Saharan) reported upon reaching land that most of their companions drowned in the sea the night before the rescue.
The survivors assure that there were more than 40 people on board the boat, that they had been sailing for four days and that a surge of sea caused most of their companions to fall into the water.
This tragedy occurs just 24 hours after another 44 migrants died in another small boat sinking, known as boats, in the same area of ​​the Atlantic, with twelve survivors rescued from the sea by Moroccan emergency services.
According to the information provided after its departure to the sea by the families, that inflatable boat had set sail for the Canary Islands with 41 people, all men, except for one young woman, and there had been no news of its whereabouts since last Saturday.
A Maritime Rescue aircraft Spain began looking for it this weekend in waters south of Gran Canaria, where this Monday he found her already half-sunken.
Salvamento MarÃtimo sent two helicopters to the area and asked two merchant ships that were nearby to help the castaways if they had any type of auxiliary vessel, until finally the castaways could be rescued after a complicated operation.
Both the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the World Organization for Migration (IOM) have been warning for some time that the Atlantic route to the Canary Islands is becoming one of the deadliest migration routes in the world.
According to IOM counts, last year one out of every five immigrants who lost their lives en route in the world while emigrating perished in a boat bound for the Canary Islands (1,109 of 5,795).
According to the European Border and Coast Agency, Frontex, the Canary Islands were in 2021 the gateway to Europe for 11.5% of all immigrants who entered irregularly through the land or sea borders of the European Union.