Five migrants found dead on boat off Canary Islands, with 68 others rescued

Rescuers were alerted on Wednesday afternoon to the vessel drifting some 800 kilometres south of the island of Tenerife, and a boat dispatched to the area rescued 68 people and found five bodies on board, the service said in a statement.

The boat also retrieved three bodies from the migrant vessel but had to leave it adrift with the other two bodies ‘due to bad weather conditions in the area’, the statement said.

Spain is one of the main gateways for migrants seeking a better life in Europe, with the vast majority making the perilous journey to try and reach the Canary Islands which lie off the northwestern coast of Africa.

The Atlantic route is particularly dangerous due to strong currents, with migrants travelling in overloaded, often unseaworthy, boats without enough drinking water.

But it has grown in popularity due to increased vigilance in the Mediterranean. At their closest point, the islands lie 100 kilometres off the coast of North Africa.

But many boats – often long wooden vessels known as pirogues – leave from much further away, setting sail from Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauritania.

Increasingly they are coming from countries further south such as Gambia and Senegal which lie about 1,500 kilometres from the Spanish islands.

More than 5,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, or the equivalent of 33 deaths per day, according to ‘Caminando Fronteras‘ (‘Walking Borders’), a Spanish charity which alerts the maritime authorities to migrant boats in distress.

That is the highest daily number of deaths since it began collating figures in 2007.

The vast majority were on the Atlantic route, where 4,800 migrants died while trying to reach the Canaries, the charity said.

ALSO READ: Over 6,600 migrants died or disappeared trying to reach Spain last year.

🔴 El año 2024 está siendo el más mortífero en frontera jamás registrado: 5054 personas víctimas en cinco meses #DerechoAlaVida2024 pic.twitter.com/wBMHNbmire

— Caminando Fronteras (@walkingborders) June 12, 2024