Six migrants died on Wednesday after drifting off the coast of the Canary Islands, while 67 others survived after being rescued, Spanish emergency services announced on Thursday. Initially, 68 survivors were taken aboard a cruise ship, the Insignia, but one of them died on board, bringing the number of deaths in their attempt to reach Europe to six, Salvamento Marítimo said.
“One of the survivors was in critical condition and had to be evacuated, but eventually the doctor on board confirmed that he had died,” Salvamento Marítimo explained on the social network – midday by boat while she was about 800 km south of Tenerife, one of the islands of this Spanish archipelago located near the northwest coast of the African continent, where the number of migrant arrivals is increasing again since a few weeks.
The Canary Islands route becomes more and more tempting
Rescuers then asked a cruise liner, the Insignia, which was nearby, to pick up the survivors, Spanish rescue services said. This boat, owned by the company Oceania Cruises, based in Miami, and which can accommodate up to 670 passengers, has been on a 180-day trip around the world since January.
Its crew managed to rescue 68 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, including three minors and three women, and retrieve three bodies, but “bad weather” prevented them from recovering the other two bodies. It was therefore decided to leave the migrant boat there, placing a tracking device on board to allow rescuers to find it later. The Insignia is expected to arrive in Tenerife on Friday morning.
This new drama illustrates the increase in migrant arrivals in the Canaries recorded in recent weeks. According to the latest statistics from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior for 2024, 18,977 migrants arrived in the Canaries between January 1 and mid-June on board 290 boats, compared to 5,914 on board 126 boats for the corresponding period of the year. last. In 2023, nearly 40,000 migrants had arrived in the Canaries, more than double the figure recorded the previous year and even more than in 2006, a record year until then for migrant arrivals. The Canary Islands route, less monitored than that of the Mediterranean, is however more dangerous.