Mediterranean: twelve Algerian migrants wanted at sea in southern Spain

The search was only interrupted for the night.

Since Sunday afternoon, the Spanish coast guard has been looking for twelve migrants missing in southern Spain, after their boat capsized during an attempt to cross from Algeria.

The rescue operation was launched after the skipper of a Norwegian sailboat announced, around 3 p.m., that he had picked up an Algerian migrant a few nautical miles off the coast of the Spanish province of Almeria, in Andalusia.

A helicopter sent to the area spotted another migrant at sea, he was rescued at 4:20 p.m.

The two migrants told the rescue team that they had embarked with twelve other people from a beach near Oran in northwestern Algeria on Saturday, but that after an engine failure on Sunday around 4 a.m. he boat had capsized.

About 180 km separate the Algerian coast at the level of Oran from the point of Cabo de Gata-Níjar, in Spain.

The first migrant was dropped off by the Norwegian sailboat at the port of San José around 6.30 p.m., the second was transported to the airport of Almeria.

They were handed over to the border authorities.

At least 1,025 people have died on this sea route

This sinking comes as, on Sunday, the coast guard rescued 16 ships off the Balearic Islands, thus sheltering 203 people, including 8 women, said the delegation of the Spanish government in the archipelago.

On the Atlantic side, a man was found dead in a boat carrying 44 other migrants, which, after a week spent at sea, arrived Sunday in Gran Canaria, one of the islands of the Canary archipelago. A rescue operation was launched when the ship approached the beach of Anfi del Mar, in the south of the island. The 44 migrants on the boat - all men including minors, and from the Maghreb - received medical treatment, before being taken to the nearby port of Arguineguin for examination. The boat would have left Morocco.

Spain is one of the main gateways to Europe for migrants departing from North Africa.

More than 27,000 migrants arrived by sea in Spain, in the Balearic or Canary Islands, between January and the end of September, i.e. 54% more than in 2020, over the same period, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior .

At least 1,025 people have died on this sea route.