Barcelona: At least five people died, and dozens more were feared dead after a boat carrying West African migrants ran into trouble in the Atlantic Ocean, while 44 people were rescued and brought to safety in the Canary Islands.
Spain's Maritime Rescue Service said on Thursday that one of its aircraft spotted a “precarious” boat drifting about 120 km (74 miles) south of Gran Canaria on Wednesday afternoon.
Helicopters immediately evacuated three survivors to a hospital on the island. The remaining 41 migrants were brought to safety by boat and disembarked early Thursday at the port of Arguineguín, where they received care from the Red Cross.
All the survivors were men, some of them underage, and were from Mali or Senegal, said José Antonio Rodríguez Verona, a spokesperson for the Red Cross in the Canary Islands.
