Some 86 migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were rescued on Monday aboard a boat located earlier in the day off the Canary Islands, a spokeswoman for Spanish rescuers told AFP.
A plane sent by the rescuers had initially estimated that the number of people on board this boat could be “around 200” and that it seemed to correspond to a boat which left Senegal almost two weeks ago and was reported missing with around 200 people on board, according to the NGO Caminando Fronteras.
80 men and 6 women rescued
But the Spanish sea rescue service admitted to having made a mistake in its estimate. “The figure we gave earlier came from the Sasemar 101 (search) plane” which had located the boat “but it is difficult for an aerial means to determine the exact number of people”, justified the spokesperson.
The rescued migrants are 80 men and 6 women, she said, indicating that a rescue vessel at sea was bringing them back to the island of Gran Canaria where they should arrive shortly before 7:00 p.m. GMT. Spain is one of the main entry points for illegal migrants in Europe.
According to the latest figures from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, 12,704 migrants arrived in Spain illegally in the first half of the year, the majority of them (7,213) in the Canary Islands, a figure down by 11.35% compared to the corresponding period of 2022.
For several years, the migratory route to the Canary Islands has been particularly busy due to the tightening of controls in the Mediterranean. Shipwrecks are frequent there, the crossing being particularly dangerous because of the strong currents and the state of the boats.