On Friday, Maritime Rescue rescued 11 migrants with symptoms of dehydration, four of them in serious condition, as they drifted on a boat 35 miles southeast of the island of Menorca. According to reports from the Government Delegation in the Balearics and the 061 emergency medical service, the migrants, of sub-Saharan origin, were treated by medical services in the port of Mahón, and the four in the worst condition were admitted to Mateu Orfila Hospital.
The boat was spotted by the crew of a French sailing boat, who notified their country’s Maritime Rescue Service, which in turn alerted the Spanish National Maritime Rescue Centre, which launched the rescue operation for the migrants, all of them men, at around 7.40 p.m. In addition, the Government Delegation has reported the rescue of another 29 migrants, also from sub-Saharan Africa, who arrived at around 6 p.m. on the island of Cabrera, south of Mallorca.
These people were in a rugged area that was difficult to access, so in addition to Maritime Rescue, the Civil Guard’s Mountain and Underwater Activities groups also took part in the operation.
With these last two boats, 258 vessels have arrived irregularly so far this year on the coasts of the Balearics, carrying 4,859 migrants, according to EFE’s count based on data from the Government Delegation in the Balearic Islands. During 2024, 5,882 migrants arrived in the archipelago by sea, according to the Ministry of the Interior’s Annual National Security Report.
And, at least 70 people were killed when a boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of West Africa, Gambia's foreign affairs ministry said late on Friday, in one of the deadliest accidents in recent years along a popular migration route to Europe. Another 30 people are feared dead after the vessel, believed to have departed from Gambia and carrying mostly Gambian and Senegalese nationals, sank off the coast of Mauritania early on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement.
It was carrying an estimated 150 passengers, 16 of whom had been rescued. Mauritanian authorities recovered 70 bodies on Wednesday and Thursday, and witness accounts suggest over 100 may have died, the statement said. The Atlantic migration route from the coast of West Africa to the Canary Islands, typically used by African migrants trying to reach Spain, is one of the world's deadliest.
More than 46,000 irregular migrants reached the Canary Islands last year, a record, according to the European Union. More than 10,000 died attempting the journey, a 58% increase over 2023, according to the rights group Caminando Fronteras. Gambia’s foreign affairs ministry implored its nationals to “refrain from embarking on such perilous journeys, which continue to claim the lives of many”.