Jun 22, 2023 12:04pm BST
Updated 42 minutes ago
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Every year, thousands of migrants make the journey from West Africa to the Canary Islands
More than 30 migrants may have drowned after their boat sank off the Canary Islands in the Atlantic, according to two charities.
There were about 60 people on the boat, according to Walking Borders and Alarm Phone.
Spanish authorities said rescue workers found the bodies of a minor and a man and rescued 24 other people – but did not know how many people were on board.
The incident prompts fresh scrutiny of Europe’s response to migration after a boat sank off Greece last week.
Walking Borders’ Helena Maleno Garzon said 39 people had drowned, including four women and a baby, while Alarm Phone said 35 people were missing. Both organizations monitor migrant boats and take calls from people on board or their families.
The boat sank about 160 kilometers southeast of Gran Canaria on Wednesday.
“It is torture when 60 people, including six women and a baby, wait for rescue for more than 12 hours in a thin inflatable boat that can sink,” Ms. Garzon said.
A Spanish rescue ship, the Guardamar Caliope, was only about an hour’s drive from the dinghy on Tuesday evening, Portal reported, citing the Spanish state news agency EFE.
The ship failed to assist the dinghy because the operation had been taken over by Moroccan officials, who dispatched a patrol boat that arrived Wednesday morning, ten hours after it was spotted by a Spanish rescue plane, Portal reports.
The BBC has sent a request for comment to the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior.
Angel Victor Torres, head of the Canary Islands region, called the incident a “tragedy” and called on the European Union to establish a migration policy that offers “coordinated and supportive responses” to the migration problem.
Although the Canary Islands lie off the west coast of Africa, they are part of Spain and many migrants travel to the archipelago from Africa, hoping to reach mainland Europe.
The West Africa-Atlantic migration route is considered one of the deadliest in the world, and at least 543 migrants died or went missing on that journey in 2022, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM).
IOM said there had been 45 shipwrecks on the route during that period, but acknowledged the number was “likely underestimated” as data was scarce and incomplete.
Most of those making the trip are from Morocco, Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, it said.
Separately, Spanish authorities rescued more than 160 people from three other boats near the islands of Lanzarote and Gran Canaria overnight on Wednesday and Thursday morning.
The news comes after a refugee boat carrying hundreds of people on board sank off the Greek coast last week. At least 78 people died, although many more are feared to have drowned.