RABAT, Morocco, Dec 31 — The bodies of 13 Moroccans have been recovered following their boat sank off the country’s southern coast although trying to attain Spain’s Canary Islands, Moroccan media documented.
The 45 passengers on board have been making an attempt to access the islands’ main metropolis of Las Palmas when their boat hit a rock and sank Friday, “10 minutes after” embarking around the city of Mirleft, according to on line information services Hespress.
Twenty-4 people, such as a minimal, ended up rescued from the drinking water and the body of one lady was between these recovered, the Arabic-language site described.
8 of the travellers stay unaccounted for.
AFP contacted Moroccan authorities to ensure the fatalities but obtained no speedy comment.
Morocco’s 2M news service noted the travellers had utilized an inflatable boat which was immediately “damaged and the victims observed themselves in the center of the waves”.
Passage on the vessel experienced expense involving 20,000 and 25,000 Moroccan dirhams (RM8,363 to RM10,564), Hespress claimed.
Positioned at Africa’s north-western idea, Morocco is a transit region for many migrants, especially sub-Saharans, searching for to access Europe from its Atlantic or Mediterranean coasts.
According to a new report by the Spanish human legal rights group Caminando Fronteras (Frontline Defenders), additional than 11,200 migrants have died or gone missing even though striving to access Spain considering that 2018, an ordinary of 6 for each day.
The route between Morocco and the Canary Islands by yourself accounted for 7,692 of these fatalities, the group stated.
Because late 2019, the selection of migrants making an attempt clandestine crossings alongside the perilous Atlantic migration route has surged as patrols in the Mediterranean intensified.
Spain’s inside ministry said on December 15 that a whole of 27,789 migrants experienced attained Spanish territory illegally this year, which includes 15,742 arrivals in the Canary Islands. — AFP