Patrol boats and helicopters were searching on Sunday for about 48 people missing after their migrant boat sank near the Spanish island of El Hierro in what could become the deadliest such incident in 30 years of crossings from Africa to the Canary Islands.
Nine people, one of them a child, have been confirmed as dead after the vessel sank in the early hours of Saturday morning, emergency and rescue services said.
Rescuers were able to pick up 27 of 84 people who were trying to reach the Spanish coast on Saturday. Three patrol boats and three helicopters were taking part in the renewed search on Sunday, a Spanish coastguard spokesman said.
The people onboard were from Mali, Mauritania and Senegal, Spanish authorities said.
The emergency services received a call shortly after midnight on Saturday from the boat, which was about four miles (six kilometres) east of El Hierro. It sank during the rescue, they said.
Wind and poor visibility made the rescue extremely difficult.
“After what happened yesterday and if the forecast for the arrival of the migrant boats happens, then it will be the biggest humanitarian crisis to happen to the Canary Islands in 30 years,” Candelaria Delgado of the Canary Islands government, told reporters on Sunday.
Three of those rescued were suffering from hypothermia and dehydration, rescue services said. The nine people who died will be buried on Monday and Tuesday.
As hopes of finding more survivors diminished, police installed a morgue on El Hierro, authorities said.
Among the dead was a child aged between 12 and 15, according to the NGO Walking Borders, which helps migrants.
Three other boats reached the Canary Islands during the night, carrying 208 people.
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Calm seas and gentle winds associated with late summer in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa have prompted a surge in arrivals, local authorities said this month.
The number of people making the crossing has risen by 154% in 2024, with 21,620 arrivals in the first seven months of the year, data from the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, shows.
The deadliest shipwreck recorded to date in about 30 years of crossings from West Africa to the Canaries occurred in 2009 off the island of Lanzarote, when 25 people died.
