At least 28 people disappeared last night in the Atlantic hours before a Maritime Rescue plane found the inflatable boat with which they were trying to get to Canary with only 13 survivors clinging to their lateral floats, as reported by the latter.
Two different sources of the rescue services have confirmed this Monday that the 13 people rescued today 120 kilometers south of Gran Canaria by two Maritime Rescue helicopters (12 men and a teenager, all sub-Saharan) have reported upon reaching land that the Most of his companions drowned in the sea the night before the rescue.
The survivors assure that there were more than 40 people on board the boat, which They had been sailing for four days and that a surge of sea caused most of their companions to fall into the water last night.
This tragedy occurs just 24 hours after others 44 emigrants died when another boat sank in the same area of the Atlantic, in the surroundings of Cape Bojador, with twelve survivors rescued from the sea by Moroccan emergency services.
According to the information provided after its departure to the sea by the families, that inflatable had set sail for the Canary Islands with 41 people, all men, except for a young woman, and there had been no news about its whereabouts since last Saturday.
A Maritime Rescue plane had started looking for her this weekend in waters south of Gran Canaria, where this Monday she was found already half-sunken.
The situation described by the crew of the Sasemar 103 plane was so desperate that Salvamento Marítimo sent two helicopters to the area (one from Gran Canaria and the other from Tenerife) and asked two merchant ships that were nearby to help the shipwrecked if they had any help. some kind of auxiliary vessel, because the rescue ship, the Guardamar Calliope, was going to take about three hours to reach that position from the port of Arguineguín.
In the first moment, the plane reported that there “could” be people in the water, although later Salvamento clarified that he could not be sure, because in that area the meteorological conditions of clouds and waves did not allow the scene to be observed clearly.
When the helicopters arrive in the area, the Helimer de Gran Canaria he collected eleven survivors from the remains of the zodiac (ten men and one woman) and left two others insured with life jackets, so that the Helimer of Tenerife would help them.
The merchant ships mobilized by Salvamento Marítimo (a cattle transport ship and a huge 277-meter-long container ship) were unable to pull them out of the water without risking causing another accident, but they were able to position themselves so that their hull protected them from the wind and ensure that nothing happened to them until help arrived.
The sources of the emergency services consulted by Efe assure that the survivors reported that some of them were already in the water when the helicopters appearedclinging to the floats of the inflatable, which was quite damaged.
Both the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the World Organization for Migration (IOM) have been warning for some time that the Atlantic route to the Canary Islands is becoming one of the deadliest migration routes in the world.
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According to the counts carried out by the IOM, last year one in five immigrants who lost their lives en route in the world perished in a boat bound for the Canary Islands (1,109 of 5,795).
If the data on missing persons from the IOM are crossed with the balance of arrivals from Frontex, it can be seen that last year one person lost his life en route to the Canary Islands for every 20.3 who arrived on land (4.9%, 1,109 out of 22,504 ). This rate doubles the mortality of Mediterranean crossings, which together amounts to one victim for every 50.7 survivors (1.9%, 2,048 out of 103,989).