Four women and three girls have died after a boat carrying dozens of migrants capsized as it approached a port on one of Spain’s Canary Islands.
Spain’s maritime rescue service said the boat, believed to be carrying about 150 people, was spotted 6 miles off La Restinga harbour on the island of El Hierro on Wednesday.
“It was escorted to the dock by the [state rescue vessel] Salvamar Diphda, and as it was about to disembark, it capsized,” the rescue service said on social media, later adding that the movement of people onboard had caused the boat to tip.
Emergency officials, along with workers from nearby businesses and a local diving team, scrambled to pull people out of the water. Those who died included a 16-year-old and two girls who were believed to be under five years old, according to emergency services.
Two children, aged three and five, were in critical condition and were taken by helicopter to a Tenerife hospital, while a three-month-old baby who was having trouble breathing was among those taken to a local hospital.
As news of the tragedy broke, the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, expressed his “solidarity and sympathies” to the victims and their families and his “full support to those working to ease their pain”.
“The tragedy that unfolded in El Hierro should move us all,” he said in a post on social media. “Lives lost in a desperate attempt to find a better future. We must rise to the occasion. It is a matter of humanity.”
It was the latest tragedy to unfold on the perilous Canary Islands route, which last year claimed more than 10,400 lives, according to the NGO Caminando Fronteras.
As the EU seeks to crack down on migration in the Mediterranean, people have increasingly resorted to reaching Europe via the Atlantic – one of the most dangerous crossings into Europe – setting off in unstable vessels that are often unfit to face the fierce ocean currents.
After a record number of people risked the route last year, arrivals in the Canary Islands have fallen by a third, government figures from 1 January to 15 May showed.
after newsletter promotion
On Wednesday, the central government representative in the archipelago, Anselmo Pestana, told reporters that the waters around El Hierro had been particularly rough in recent days, suggesting those on the vessel had gone through a long and difficult crossing and were in a state of extreme exhaustion as the boat neared the dock. “We know that this is the most delicate moment of a rescue,” he said.
The Canary Islands’ regional leader, Fernando Clavijo, described it as a glimpse of the “authentic tragedy” playing out in the region as emergency services grapple with the deadly consequences of the Canary Islands route.
“Once again, we are seeing the harshest side of immigration, which affects children, and unfortunately so,” he said. “In this case, the vessel capsized at the dock, just when they had achieved their dream.”
