Death toll rises to 80 on migrant boat that drifted in the Atlantic Ocean
44 survivors were rescued off the coast of the Canary Islands, including three in critical condition who were evacuated by helicopter. The boat, carrying more than 100 people, departed from Gambia on August 7 and lost its way. The President of the Canary Islands stated: "The Atlantic continues to be a route of death."
80 people, including an infant, perished on a migrant boat that was found drifting off the coast of the Canary Islands, the Spanish Ministry of the Interior reported. 44 people were rescued alive from the boat, which had departed with more than 100 passengers on board.
A plane from the Spanish Maritime Rescue Service located the makeshift vessel on Wednesday afternoon, about 120 km south of the island of Gran Canaria. A rescue ship arrived at the scene near midnight, and in the early hours of Thursday morning, it brought the survivors to the port of Arguineguin, where they were treated by the Red Cross. Three of them, whose condition was defined as critical, had been evacuated earlier by helicopter to a hospital on the island.
The survivors, all men, some of them minors, said they had departed from Gambia and drifted at sea for "very many days." According to estimates, the boat set out on August 7, meaning it had been drifting for about 26 days before being located. Red Cross spokespeople in the Canaries stated that the survivors are citizens of Mali and Senegal.
In initial reports on Thursday, Spanish authorities confirmed only five deaths and reported dozens of missing persons. The migrant rights organization Walking Borders, which tracks deaths on migration routes to Spain, had already stated then that 83 people had perished on the journey, including three women and an infant. The official number released by the Ministry of the Interior now confirms the scale of the disaster.
"It is unbearable that people continue to die. The Canaries cannot get used to the fact that the Atlantic Ocean continues to be a route of death," wrote the President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, on the X network.
Clavijo added that "Spain needs a state migration policy, and Europe must take responsibility. It is impossible to continue managing migration from crisis to crisis."
The Atlantic route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is considered one of the deadliest in the world. Although the number of migrants arriving at the Spanish archipelago has decreased significantly over the past year, tens of thousands have perished or disappeared on it in recent years, and in some cases, boats that lost their way drifted across the entire ocean to the shores of America.
The disaster follows the mass border crossing into the Spanish territory of Ceuta in July, during which about 60,000 migrants from Morocco entered and at least 67 people died. Following the events, the European Union convened an emergency meeting to discuss the wave of migration.
