86 people are rescued by the Spanish coast guard during the hunt for a missing migrant boat. The whereabouts of 500 others are still unknown.
Spanish maritime rescuers have spent days searching for the small Senegalese boat that got wrecked a week ago.
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The Spanish coast guard rescued 86 passengers from a missing migrant boat more than a week ago.
The ship was claimed to be 70 nautical miles (130 kilometres) south-west of the Canary Islands, carrying migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa.
A container ship supported the coast guard. Both ships are presently on their way to the island of Gran Canaria.
Two identical boats carrying scores more people are still missing, according to reports. There are minimal details available about them.
Walking Borders, a migrant relief organisation, told the a source that one boat carried roughly 65 people and the other up to 60.
They are believed to have left Senegal on June 23rd, four days before the larger ship.
According to Walking Borders, this one sailed from Kafountine, a coastal village in Senegal around 1,700 kilometres from Tenerife.
The larger vessel, according to the group, had 200 people on board, including many children, when it left Kafountine on June 27 towards the Canary Islands.
Eighty men and six women have been rescued. It is unclear whether all of those on board have been rescued.
The announcement comes only weeks after an overcrowded trawler sank off the coast of Greece, in one of the world’s worst maritime disasters.
At least 78 individuals were verified drowned, while the UN stated that up to 500 others were unaccounted for.
The journey from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the most perilous for migrants.
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They typically sail in dugout fishing boats, which are readily tossed by strong Atlantic currents.
According to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM), at least 559 people died at sea last year while attempting to reach the Spanish islands.
