Around 400 illegal migrants have arrived on the Spanish coast since last Friday. Gran Canaria, the Balearics and Almería have been the main destinations for the small boats. In the early hours of Sunday morning, the Maritime Rescue Service rescued 236 migrants from a small boat that was found adrift and without an engine 232 miles south of the island of Gran Canaria.
The National Maritime Rescue Centre received an alert from the vessel Teos reporting the presence of a cayuco boat stopped alongside with numerous people on board. While the vessel proceeded to secure the boat with a rope, it requested assistance, as it did not consider it safe to carry out further operations. The cayuco no longer had an engine and was adrift.
The Maritime Rescue Centre in Las Palmas therefore mobilised the guard vessel Urania, which at 2.15 a.m. on Sunday rescued 236 people of sub-Saharan origin, including men, women and children. They were transferred to the port of Arguineguín. In Almería, the Red Cross’s emergency response and humanitarian assistance teams (ERIE-AHI) attended to a total of 140 migrants located in small boats or who had reached the province’s coast by their own means since last Friday in the fishing port of Almería.
Sources from the organisation have confirmed to Europa Press that the teams have been activated on a dozen occasions, most of them on Sunday, when up to six operations were carried out to assist groups of up to 33 people. In line with this, and based on the work of the emergency and rescue services, 22 people were handed over to the Red Cross on Friday, another 18 on Saturday and 100 on Sunday.
There have been reports of migrants rescued at different points along the Almeria coast, from El Playazo de Vera to the Cabo de Gata area and San Miguel beach in El Ejido, in the Poniente area.
In the Balearic Islands, the search for the 12 migrants who went missing when a boat sank off Cabrera and the three who went missing when a boat sank south of Mallorca has been suspended.
This was confirmed on Monday by the Maritime Rescue Service, which explained that no more resources will be deployed to carry out search operations, although warnings will be issued to sailors in case they make any sightings.
The boat from which 12 migrants jumped was rescued on Friday afternoon about 36 miles southwest of Cabrera. A total of 26 people were travelling on board. Meanwhile, three migrants were being searched for after going missing from a boat that sank last Wednesday south of Mallorca, after drifting for about six days.