Spanish rescuers are searching the waters off the Canary Islands for a boat carrying at least 200 African migrants who went missing more than a week ago. The aid group Walking Borders says the fishing boat sailed from Kafountine, a coastal town in southern Senegal. It is roughly 1,700 kilometers (1,057 miles) from Tenerife.
The group says many children are on board, Spain’s EFE news agency reports. Two similar boats carrying dozens more people are also missing. Spain’s maritime rescue service told EFE that a plane had joined the search. The boat with 200 people on board left Kafountine on June 27, heading for the Canary Islands.
There are few details about the other two boats; however, Reuters quoted Helena Maleno of Walking Borders as saying that one has about 65 people on board, the other up to 60. That would bring the total number of people missing across the three boats to more than 300.
Spanish maritime rescuers have spent days looking for the small Senegalese boat
The news comes just weeks after Europe saw one of its most catastrophic Mediterranean migrant shipwrecks when an overcrowded trawler sank off the Greek coast. At least 78 people were confirmed to have drowned, but the United Nations (UN) reported that up to 500 were still missing.
The voyage from West Africa to the Canary Islands is among the most dangerous routes for migrants. This is not the least because they usually sail in simple dugout fishing boats that are easily tossed by powerful Atlantic currents.
Last year, at least 559 people died at sea attempting to reach the Spanish islands, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) says. 2021 saw 1,126 deaths. The IOM quotes Spain’s Interior Ministry as saying 15,682 people arrived irregularly in the Canary Islands in 2022, a decrease of 30% compared to 2021.
“Despite the year-to-year decrease, flows along this dangerous route since 2020 remain high compared to prior years,” the IOM says.
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