The Canary migration route, the deadliest in the world, was once again shrouded in mourning yesterday. 83 people, including two women and a baby, died aboard a cayuco that left Gambia on August 7 with 127 occupants and was lost at sea without water or food.
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The alarm was raised on Wednesday by a Maritime Rescue plane while conducting reconnaissance flights over the area, and immediately, the Guardamar Urania was activated, whose crew found a “dantesque” scene when they arrived at the boat, located 120 kilometers from Gran Canaria.
As they have reported, the migrants were completely numb and inert next to five corpses – including two women and the baby – who had to be left on the boat adrift due to the rough sea conditions. It is unknown if there were more bodies in the cayuco, due to the depth of these boats, the low light of the night, and the water and debris inside.
The rescue of the survivors was also not easy due to the waves and the difficulty of the migrants to move, as sources from Maritime Rescue have pointed out. The severity of three of them required evacuation by helicopter at sea to hospital centers in Gran Canaria. Three more were also transferred for dehydration and general discomfort to the hospital once they arrived at the Arguineguín dock, in Gran Canaria. The same dock where Pope Leo XIV was last June and from which he sent a message of dignity and solidarity towards migrants, criticizing Europe for its lack of action.
“They were authentic living corpses,” said sources from Maritime Rescue. In the same vein, Red Cross sources expressed themselves, who attended to the migrants after their arrival at the Arguineguín dock at 4:15 a.m. (local time). “It had been a long time since we saw something so harsh,” says José Antonio Rodríguez, head of emergency first response of the Red Cross in the Canary Islands.
As he recounts, the migrants arrived in a very delicate state of health, in fact, “they could not move.” “They were exhausted and we had to accompany everyone, either in a wheelchair or with someone because they could not walk. They collapsed,” he indicates. Some could not even sit up to give their information to the National Police at the time of identification.
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Clavijo asks the archipelago “not to normalize the Atlantic continuing to be a route of death”
The migrants reported that they had been at sea for many days, without water or food. They said they had even drunk seawater. “They were very weak,” he adds. After the first aid, the migrants were transferred in the morning to the temporary care center (Cate) of Barranco Seco, in Gran Canaria, where they are being attended to and treated for saltwater consumption.
From Caminando Fronteras, its head, Helena Maleno, has confirmed that the cayuco is the same one that left on August 7. She has also described the despair experienced by the families of the 127 occupants of the boat these days. “You can imagine, numerous relatives calling desperately to find out and thinking the worst, and in the end, the tragedy has been confirmed,” Maleno said, who again questions the lack of coordination between Spain and Morocco and the rescue resources deployed to assist these boats that urgently need help.
The President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has considered on the X network that it is “unbearable” that lives continue to be lost at sea. “Canary Islands cannot get used to or normalize the Atlantic continuing to be a route of death,” he said, then demanding that Spain needs a state migration policy and that Europe must assume its responsibility. “We cannot continue managing migration crisis by crisis. We are talking about life and dignity,” he said, after mentioning the situation being experienced in Ceuta and comparing it with what the Canary Islands have suffered for years.
Only in the first five months of this year, the NGO Caminando Fronteras has recorded 635 deaths on the Atlantic route. For every 100 arrivals, 21 deaths are recorded.
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