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At
least three people died and at least two more were missing,
including a six-year old girl. Rescue workers with a helicopter
were searching the coast around Lanzarote's northern region of
Muelle de Orzola for them on Friday morning.
Local resident Marcos Lemes, who was first on the scene and
alerted emergency services, told Reuters he had begun pulling
people out of the water after giving his phone to a boy to use
as a torch.
"I ran out of the house with two buoys that I keep at home and
when I got there it was madness ... I saw a huge number of
people on the reef."
A dozen of the rescued group, including two babies and two young
children, were transferred to hospital, the regional emergency
services said.
Another boat carrying 58 people made it to Fuerteventura and a
third with 52 people landed on the tiny island of El Hierro.
So far this year more than 5,700 migrants have made the
dangerous crossing from Africa to the Canaries archipelago, over
twice as many as in the same period in 2020, which itself saw an
eightfold increase from 2019.
A record 850 died on the route last year, according to the
United Nations migration agency, which suggested COVID-19 had
prompted many workers in struggling industries like fishing or
agriculture to migrate.
With arrival facilities on the Canaries packed to capacity,
authorities have housed of migrants thousands in camps where
conditions have criticised by rights groups.
(Reporting by Borja Suarez; Additional reporting and writing by
Nathan Allen, editing by Andrei Khalip and Catherine Evans)
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