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by Borja Suarez
EL HIERRO, Spain (Reuters) – Rescue teams resumed the search on Sunday for some 48 migrants missing since their boat sank near the Spanish island of El Hierro, in the Canaries.
If the feared human toll is confirmed, it could be the deadliest incident in 30 years of crossings from Africa to the Canary Islands.
Emergency and rescue services have so far reported the confirmed deaths of nine people, including a child, while 27 of the 84 migrants who tried to reach the Spanish coast were rescued.
A Reuters reporter said a coast guard ship left the island of El Hierro on Sunday to resume the search. Other boats should follow, as well as air support.
Spanish authorities said the migrants were from Mali, Mauritania and Senegal.
Emergency services received a call shortly after midnight on Saturday from the boat, which was about six kilometers east of El Hierro. The boat sank during the rescue operation.
“They had been at sea for at least two days without food and it seems that there was a panic before the boat capsized,” Anselmo Pestana, representative of the Spanish government in the Canary Islands, told reporters on Saturday.
The wind and poor visibility made the rescue extremely difficult, he added.
Among the dead was a child aged 12 to 15, according to the NGO Walking Borders, which helps migrants.
Three other boats reached the Canary Islands overnight, carrying 208 migrants.
Calm seas and gentle winds associated with late summer in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa have sparked a new influx of migrants, local authorities said this month, trafficking having increased by 154% since the start of the year.
A total of 21,620 migrants reached the Canary Islands during the first seven months of the year, according to data from Frontex, the European agency for the management of operational cooperation at external borders.
In some 30 years of migrant crossings to the islands, the deadliest shipwreck recorded to date occurred in 2009 off the island of Lanzarote, killing 25 people.
(Reporting Graham Keeley, Borja Suarez, Ana Cantero, French version Claude Chendjou)
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