Five migrants die trying to reach the Canary Islands

MADRID: Five bodies were found floating in the sea on Sunday after the inflatable boat they were travelling in punctured around 90-kms off the Spanish island of Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, Spanish Sea Rescue services told Reuters.

A spokesman said a rescue aircraft sighted two inflatable boats heading towards the archipelago, and that one of them had one of its floats deflated. The aircraft launched two life rafts and was able to rescue 17 people from one vessel and 80 from another, but five bodies were also found.

State agency EFE said the rescue services had in all rescued more than 1,500 people over the weekend. It also reported on Sunday that at least 48 migrants died trying to reach the Canary Islands in a boat that departed Mauritania three weeks ago. Ten more migrants from the same craft were rescued near the island of El Hierro on Saturday, it said.

Calm seas and gentle winds associated with late summer in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa have prompted a surge of migrants trying to escape extreme poverty and political instability in Africa’s Sahel region. The Atlantic route to the Canary Islands has seen the fastest growth in irregular migration in recent years, though numbers remain below those on the Central Mediterranean route towards Italy.

Some 32,878 migrants have taken the route in boats from West Africa to the Canary Islands between January and Oct. 15, according to government figures, a rise of 39.7% from the same period last year.