A boat, towed by the coast guard, arrived in the Canary Islands on Wednesday with the
bodies of 24 immigrants
on board, authorities announced.
The boat arrived at the port of Los Cristianos, on the island of Tenerife, where hearse and emergency services were waiting.
"The fire department is taking these people out of the boat and putting them in the tent, and then taking them to the funeral home,"
Domingo Martín,
of the Red Cross, in Tenerife
, told reporters
.
The maritime rescue services initially reported a death toll of 17, but the count carried out upon the ship's arrival at port revealed that there were 24, including
two minors.
A Spanish air force plane carrying out a routine patrol detected the presence of the vessel on Monday, some 500 kilometers southeast of the island of El Hierro.
Three survivors
who were traveling in this boat, two men and a woman, were transported by helicopter to a hospital in Tenerife on Monday. One of the men was seriously dehydrated. "They were so weak that I had to lean on the bell to keep them upright," said
Juan Carlos Serrano, a
member of the air force team that rescued the migrants by helicopter. According to a spokesman for maritime aid, all the occupants of the vessel came from sub-Saharan Africa.
The death of the 24 people "is one of the most important tragedies since the last migration crisis" in 2006, when the archipelago off the coast of northwest Africa received
a historic wave
of migrant
arrivals
, some 30,000, according to the delegation. of the government.
The journey to the Canary Islands from Africa, dangerous due to the strong currents, has become the
priority for immigrants
due to the difficulties imposed by the European Union in the Mediterranean.
The arrivals of migrants to the archipelago increased eightfold in 2020 compared to the previous year, reaching 23,023 people.
"The rough seas at this time of year and the long distances they travel, which can go
between 400 and 1,500 kilometers,
depending on the starting point on the West African coast, make this route especially dangerous," they said in a statement. jointly the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
"These boats are sometimes left adrift for several days, without water or food," they added.
Both UNHCR and IOM declared themselves "shocked by the latest tragedy near the Canary Islands."
According to the association Caminando Fronteras, which monitors migration flows, 1,851 people died on this route in 2020.
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