Two migrants lost their lives yesterday Thursday trying to reach the Spanish Canary Islands with a boat carrying more than 30 people, French Agency journalists found.
The boat, which had deviated from its course, was towed to the port of Arginine, in the Canary Islands, in the Spanish archipelago not far from the coast of northwest Africa.
AFP correspondents saw members of a rescue squad pull two dead from the boat.
The Canary Islands first aid service said the two people had been offered care at sea because they were in a “much more serious condition than the others”.
One had “hypothermia and dehydration”, the other “hand injury”, the service explained via Twitter.
The sea route to the Canaries is extremely dangerous. Some 900 people have been killed trying to reach the shores of the Atlantic archipelago since the beginning of the year, according to data compiled by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), part of the UN system.
Between January and October 2021, 16,827 migrants arrived by sea in the Canary Islands, a number that increased by 44.3% from the corresponding period of 2020, according to data from the Spanish Ministry of Interior.
Spain is one of the main gateways for illegal immigrants and refugees to Europe.
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