Immigrant humanitarian aid group, Walking Borders, also known as Caminando Fronteras, says Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service has rescued 86 African migrants who went missing in the Canary Islands after three boats from Senegal disappeared on Sunday.
Coordinator for the aid group,
Helena Maleno Garzon told journalists on Tuesday that hundreds of the migrants were still missing while search operations continue.
The migrants totalling 300, mostly from sub-Saharan African countries, had reportedly left Senegal in three make-shift boats on their way to the Spanish enclave from where they would voyage into Europe, before they were declared missing.
“Two boats departed June 23 from Mbour, a coastal city in central Senegal, carrying about 100 people, and a third left the southern town of Kafountine four days later with approximately 200 people,” Garzon said.
“The most important thing is to find those people. There are many people missing at sea. This isn’t normal. We need more planes to look for them,” she said.
Garzon said she had been in contact with the Moroccan, Spanish and Mauritanian marines and that more needed to be done to look for the missing boats.
“Imagine if there were 300 American people missing at sea. What would happen? Many planes will look for them,” she lamented.
A statement from the Maritime Rescue Service said though it could not confirm that the rescued boat was one of the three reported missing, the vessel was a multi-colored, 20-meter-long (65-foot-long) canoe of the type known in Senegal as a pirogue.
“Eighty men and six women of sub-Saharan origin were rescued and expected to reach Spanish soil Monday evening,” the Spanish agency said.
It added that it had alerted boats sailing in Atlantic waters between the Canary Islands and West Africa to be on the lookout for other migrant boats still missing.