MADRID: Four women and three girls drowned on Wednesday after migrants disembarking an overcrowded boat in Spain's Canary Islands accidentally capsized the vessel, rescuers said, in the latest tragedy on the perilous route.
Emergency services in the Atlantic archipelago confirmed the seven deaths “after the capsizing of a vessel” in La Restinga port on the island of El Hierro.
They said on X that one of the girls was aged five and another 16.
Spain's maritime rescue service, which located the boat some six nautical miles from shore, said it was carrying 159 people, including 49 women and 32 minors.
Authorities said it was not immediately clear where the boat had departed from or the nationalities of those on board.
Juan Miguel Padron, mayor of El Pinar, north of La Restinga, told local television that some migrants were trapped in the boat and others died during the rescue when the vessel capsized upon reaching what he called “the promised land”.
“It’s terrible, just terrible,“ he added.
A three-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl almost drowned and were transported by helicopter to a hospital in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, the emergency services added.
Two three-month-old babies, a pregnant woman and three minors were in hospital on El Hierro, they said.
Spanish broadcaster RTVE aired footage of rescuers throwing lifebuoys to people clinging onto an overturned boat and treading water off El Hierro.
The maritime rescue service told AFP in a statement that a rescue ship found the boat and accompanied it to La Restinga.
“During the disembarkation, some of the people travelling on the boat crowded on one of the sides, which caused it to tilt and capsize,“ the service said.
“The transfer of people is the most delicate moment of the operation and, with the vessels being overloaded and with precarious security conditions, the difficulty increases notably.”
Alpidio Armas, head of El Hierro's local government, questioned how the migrants could be saved on the high seas but die in the apparent safety of a port.
“We are doing something wrong,“ he told reporters.
'Question of humanity'
Each year, Spain takes tens of thousands of Europe-bound migrants who arrive in the Canary Islands from west Africa -- with Mali, Senegal and Morocco the most common nationalities.
Strong ocean currents and ramshackle vessels make the long crossing dangerous.
According to the NGO Caminando Fronteras, at least 10,457 migrants died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain by sea from January 1 to December 5, 2024.
The central government's representative in the archipelago, Anselmo Pestana, explained that the migrants' fatigue complicated the emergency response in the water.
“If the rescue was not immediate, they probably sunk very quickly,“ he told journalists on the island of Gran Canaria.
Local authorities have consistently warned of unsustainable pressure on their resources and complained about a lack of solidarity.
“We ask for decisive action from the European Union,“ the Canary Islands' regional leader Fernando Clavijo told journalists.
“This is unfortunately what we experience... those who are very far away in offices are incapable of understanding it.”
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on X that the deaths “should move us all”.
“Lives lost in a desperate attempt to find a better future,“ he added.
Almost 47,000 irregular arrivals reached the Canaries in 2024, breaking the annual record for the second year running, as tighter controls in the Mediterranean pushed migrants to attempt the Atlantic route.
But numbers are down so far this year, dropping 34.4 percent between January 1 and May 15 compared with the same period in 2024, according to interior ministry figures.
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