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Lifeboats in the port of Arguineguín on Gran Canaria
Photo: Europa Press / dpa
Two dead were discovered in a refugee boat off the coast of the Canary Islands.
There were a total of 37 people on the boat who had set sail from the African coast.
This was announced by the local authorities of the AFP news agency.
Seven men were taken to hospital after the boat was towed into the port of Arguineguín in Gran Canaria on Sunday evening.
Of the seven people admitted to the hospital, three were in mortal danger.
All migrants in the boat are from sub-Saharan Africa.
Four migrants, including a child and a pregnant woman, had only died in mid-June after their boat sank off Lanzarote.
Since the beginning of the year, many people from Africa have been arriving in the Canary Islands, from January 1 to June 15, according to the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, there were 5734 migrants - twice as many as in the same period of 2020. According to local media, the weekend was Dozens of people came to the Canary Islands by boat from the African coast.
The route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the longest and deadliest.
Last year, a total of 23,023 migrants had reached the Canary Islands - eight times as many as in 2019. According to the aid organization Caminando Fronteras, at least 1851 people died during the dangerous crossing last year.
The shorter and safer route is blocked
Some of the migrants start in Senegal, from there it is 1,600 kilometers to the Canary Islands.
Other migrants leave the Western Sahara or Morocco.
Even a small miscalculation in the water supply or problems with the engine can mean that the men, women and children do not survive the trip.
More and more people have been using the route since the end of 2019, mainly because the Moroccan authorities, with Spanish help, are blocking the much shorter and safer route across the Strait of Gibraltar.
In the past, many refugees in the Canary Islands reported that they were unable to access sufficient information and a lawyer in the chaos on the islands.
The non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch spoke of "serious concerns" about whether the right to asylum would be respected.
fek / AFP
