Rescuers renewed their search on Sunday for about 48 people missing after their migrant boat sank close to 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 aged between 12 and 15, have been confirmed dead in the incident in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Rescuers were able to save 27 of the 84 passengers who were trying to reach the Spanish coast. Spanish authorities said the people onboard were from Mali, Mauritania and Senegal.
Three patrol boats and three helicopters were taking part in the renewed search, a Spanish coastguard spokesperson said.
Three survivors were suffering from hypothermia and dehydration, rescue services said. The nine people who died will be buried on Monday and Tuesday.
The emergency services received a call shortly after midnight on Saturday from the boat, which was about four miles east of El Hierro. It sank during the rescue, they said.
Wind and poor visibility made the rescue extremely difficult. As hopes of finding more survivors diminished, police installed a morgue on El Hierro, authorities said.
“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, the islands’ minister of social welfare, said on Sunday.
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.
Located off the coast of north-west Africa, the Canary Islands have become an increasingly popular destination for people braving the perilous Atlantic crossing in search of refuge in Europe. The vast majority land on the westernmost island of El Hierro.
Three other boats reached the islands during the night, carrying 208 people.
The number of people landing at the Canary Islands in 2023 more than doubled in one year to a record 39,910, according to the Spanish government. More than 19,000 have arrived so far this year. There were protests in June among residents against the inflows.
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Thousands have died in recent years while trying to cross the Atlantic, known for its fierce currents, on overcrowded, unsafe vessels.
According to Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish charity, more than 5,000 people died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, or the equivalent of 33 deaths per day.
In July, nearly 90 people bound for Europe died and dozens more went missing after their boat capsized off the coast of Mauritania.
Fernando Clavijo, the president of the Canary Islands, said the latest tragedy “again underlines the dangerousness of the Atlantic route”.
More than 1,400 people have also died or gone missing crossing the central Mediterranean from north Africa since January. At least 11 were confirmed to have died in two separate shipwrecks off the southern Italian region of Calabria in June.