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An abandoned dinghy (archive photo)
Photo:
Renata Brito / dpa
17 people died on a boat southeast of the Canary Islands.
The bodies were discovered around 500 kilometers off the coast of the Spanish island of El Hierro, the Spanish coast guard announced on Monday.
Three survivors were rescued by helicopter.
They suffered from hypothermia, but are otherwise fine.
The migrants on board the boat were reportedly from sub-Saharan Africa.
Where they had started the dangerous crossing across the Atlantic initially remained unclear.
Two weeks ago, four dead were found in a makeshift boat south of El Hierro.
19 other inmates survived.
The Canary Islands, which lie off the north-west coast of Africa in the Atlantic, are increasingly becoming a destination for refugees on their way to Europe.
Last year around 23,000 migrants landed on the Spanish holiday islands, eight times as many as in 2019.
In the first three months of this year, 3400 asylum seekers arrived in the Canary Islands, more than twice as many as in the same period of the previous year.
mjm / AFP
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