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Rescuing people from often unseaworthy boats: the Spanish Coast Guard off the Canary Islands
Photo: ADRIEL PERDOMO/EPA
The Spanish coast guard has discovered four dead migrants on a boat off the Canary Islands.
According to an NGO, the boat originally had 34 people on board.
A cargo ship spotted a dinghy in the Atlantic about 300 kilometers south of Gran Canaria, reported the state Canary TV broadcaster RTVC on Sunday.
Only one survivor with severe hypothermia was found in the boat.
Four other migrants in the boat were already dead.
NGO Caminando Fronteras wrote on Twitter that they received an emergency call from the boat on September 24, a few hours after it left the Western Sahara coast.
After a week without news, a boat with "a completely exhausted 26-year-old man and four bodies on board" was discovered south of the Canary Islands, explained Helena Maleno of Caminando Fronteras.
The survivor said there were originally a total of 34 people from sub-Saharan Africa on board.
Further details were not initially known.
The other 29 people were "swallowed by the ocean," said Maleno, speaking of "another tragedy on one of the most dangerous routes for migrants" between Africa and the Canary Islands.
About a thousand people have died during the crossing so far
Since the beginning of the year, around 11,500 migrants have made the crossing from Africa to the Canary Islands, according to figures from the Spanish government.
According to Caminando Fronteras, 978 people died trying to cross it.
At their narrowest point, the Canary Islands are only a hundred kilometers from Morocco.
However, most migrants start the crossing further south, with some boats leaving from Mauritania, a thousand kilometers further south.
The route is extremely dangerous due to the strong currents.
Despite the danger to life, people in small, often unseaworthy boats dare to cross the open Atlantic from North Africa to the Canary Islands and thus to the EU.
jpa/dpa/afp