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Another boat arrived at a port in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands on June 22 after being rescued at sea.
Madrid CNN —
Dozens of people are feared drowning after a refugee boat sank near Spain’s Canary Islands on Wednesday, according to Spanish officials and aid organization Walking Borders.
Authorities have recovered two bodies, including a young boy, but the true number of people on board is unknown.
Helena Maleno, the founder of Walking Borders, told CNN that her group received frantic calls from relatives of migrants on board on Tuesday afternoon, saying the boat was drifting after losing all engine power. The organization alerted the Spanish authorities and requested a rescue operation.
The Spanish Sea Rescue Service tweeted on Wednesday that two bodies had been recovered from the sunken boat that had left Morocco. It was said that a Moroccan patrol boat rescued 24 other people alive.
Maleno told CNN that one of the bodies recovered was that of a four-year-old boy whose body was taken to Spain. She added that her group believes 37 other people drowned on the same boat, based on phone conversations with relatives and people on board the boat before the sinking.
As recently reported by the Spanish Interior Ministry, a total of 5,914 migrants have arrived by boat in the Canary Islands this year as of June 15, down 31% compared to the same period last year.
Maleno said there had been a noticeable increase in attempted migrant crossings to the Canary Islands in recent weeks.
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On Thursday, the Spanish government’s maritime services rescued 227 other migrants from four boats off Lanzarote and the Gran Canaria islands, part of the Canary archipelago off the west coast of Morocco.
The incident raises more questions about Europe’s response to migration after an overcrowded fishing trawler – reportedly with 750 people on board – capsized off the coast of Greece last week, killing at least 82 people and leaving hundreds more missing.