Key takeaways:
- Spanish maritime rescuers found 44 survivors and five bodies aboard a boat about 65 nautical miles southwest of Gran Canaria on Wednesday.
- Caminando Fronteras founder Helena Maleno Garzón said 83 people died, including three women and a baby girl; Spanish authorities said they could not confirm that toll.
- Three survivors were airlifted to hospital in critical condition, while 41 others were taken to Gran Canaria and received Red Cross care.
More than 80 people, including a baby, are feared dead after a migrant boat drifted in the Atlantic for 27 days before rescuers reached it off Spain’s Canary Islands, authorities and a migrant aid group said.
Spanish maritime rescue teams found 44 survivors and five bodies aboard the vessel on Wednesday evening about 65 nautical miles southwest of Arguineguín, a coastal town on Gran Canaria. The boat is believed to have left The Gambia in early August with 127 people on board.
Helena Maleno Garzón, founder of the Spanish charity Caminando Fronteras, said 83 people had died on the boat, including three women and a baby girl. The group compiles its figures from testimonies from migrants’ families and official rescue statistics, Al Jazeera reported, and its tolls are often higher than government counts.
Spanish maritime rescue service Salvamento Marítimo said it could not verify how many people had originally been on board. A spokesperson told AFP, according to Al Jazeera, that the other alleged victims “have not been found or rescued” and that the higher death toll could not be confirmed.
The 44 survivors were all male, maritime rescue authorities said. The BBC reported they were men from sub-Saharan Africa. Jose Antonio Rodriguez Verona, a Red Cross spokesperson in the Canaries, told Al Jazeera that the survivors included some minors and came from Mali or Senegal.
Three survivors in critical condition were airlifted by helicopter to a hospital on Gran Canaria. The remaining 41 were taken by sea to the island, arriving in the early hours of Thursday, and received care from the Red Cross.
Salvamento Marítimo said rough conditions complicated the operation. “Once the rescue was complete, adverse weather conditions in the area — featuring 20-knot winds and 2.5m waves — made it impossible to recover the five bodies found on board the vessel,” the service said, according to the BBC. Al Jazeera reported that authorities said the weather initially prevented the retrieval of the five bodies before the vessel was taken to the port of Arguineguín.
Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo said the deaths showed the need for a state migration policy. “It is intolerable that lives continue to be lost. The Canaries cannot get used to or accept as normal the fact that the Atlantic continues to be a death trap,” he wrote on X.
The Atlantic route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the world’s deadliest migration crossings. Thousands attempt it each year to reach Spanish territory, facing long distances, rough seas, strong currents and often overloaded or makeshift boats.
The Canary Islands are among the main gateways into Europe for people fleeing poverty, conflict and persecution, alongside Mediterranean routes to Italy and Greece. Al Jazeera reported that arrivals to the islands peaked in 2024 at more than 46,000, then fell after tighter patrols and cooperation with countries of origin and transit. From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, 5,163 migrants and refugees reached the Canaries by sea, a 57% drop from the same period last year, according to Spanish Interior Ministry figures cited by Al Jazeera.
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