The Spanish coastguard reported Tuesday that the body of a deceased pregnant woman was recovered from a dinghy carrying 53 sub-Saharan migrants near the island of Lanzarote, in the Canary archipelago in the Atlantic. A fishing boat sighted the vessel half a nautical mile off the beach of Los Cocoteros, in the east of Lanzarote, according to a spokesman for the Salvamento Maritimo coastguard.
In the dinghy were 53 migrants, all of them of sub-Saharan origin, including 43 men, 7 women, and 3 children, the spokesman detailed. Unfortunately, one of the women, who was pregnant, had died.
The migrants were taken to the town of Arrecife, where the survivors are receiving medical attention. This incident occurred in the Canary Islands, a group of islands off the northwest coast of Africa, just days after a fishing boat sank with hundreds of migrants on board off the coast of Greece. The tragedy left at least 78 dead and several missing, while only 104 people were rescued.
Both Greece and Spain are important entry points for irregular migrants to Europe. According to the latest figures from Spain’s Ministry of the Interior, 5,914 migrants have arrived in the Canary Islands by sea so far this year, which is 31.5% less than in the same period in 2022, when 8,628 people arrived.