The small boat from Africa was almost in safe harbor. But suddenly panic broke out in the middle of the dark night, which, according to authorities, led to tragedy.
Dozens of migrants are believed to have died when a wooden boat sank off the coast of the Canary Island of El Hierro. The Spanish maritime emergency service said there was still no trace of the at least 48 missing people. Nine bodies were recovered after the accident on Saturday night. Only 27 of the at least 84 inmates were rescued, including four minors.
The search work resumed after daybreak. The maritime emergency service announced on X that three ships and three helicopters would be used. Meanwhile, the hope of being able to save some of the missing people alive was rapidly dwindling. On Saturday, spokesmen for the emergency services admitted that hopes were minimal.
The open wooden boat with at least 84 migrants from Africa capsized early Saturday morning around one o’clock during a rescue operation almost four nautical miles (a good seven kilometers) south of La Restinga on the westernmost Canary island of El Hierro. The accident occurred when too many migrants moved to one side of the boat as a sea rescue cruiser approached, it said. It must be assumed that the death toll could be around 60 if no one is rescued.
Despair caused panic
It was said that those rescued were completely exhausted, dehydrated and hypothermic. The people in the accident boat were without water or food for two days, said the representative of the central government in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana. They would have had to drink salt water. The desperate situation probably led to panic in the overcrowded boat when the occupants saw the rescue ship in the middle of the night. Survivors said that the boat set sail a week ago in Nouadhibou in western Mauritania, around 750 kilometers as the crow flies from El Hierro.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), almost 30,000 migrants have already reached the Canary Islands from Africa this year. That was significantly more than in the same period last year. The boats depart from the coast of West Africa between Guinea in the south and Morocco in the north.
The Spanish aid organization Caminando Fronteras estimates that around 4,800 people drowned or died of exhaustion on the hundreds of kilometers of crossing between January and the end of May.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
