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According to aid agencies “walking across the border”, the dead may include 30 women, 8 children and 4 men.
A Spanish migrant rights activist said that about 42 migrants, including 30 women and 8 children, may have capsized in rough seas shortly after their boat sailed from the coastal town of Dakhla in Western Sahara. die.
Helena Maleno Garzon, founder of the charity Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders), said the dead included 30 women, 8 children and 4 men. Only 10 households survived.
“We can’t get used to such tragedies,” another immigration aid organization, the Spanish Refugee Council (CEAR), wrote on Twitter.
Moroccan officials in Dakhla could not be immediately contacted for official confirmation. However, local media reported that 12 bodies were washed ashore on Thursday and another 10 people were rescued by fishermen off the coast of Dakhla.
Morocco claims that the disputed Western Sahara territory was annexed in 1975, and its navy operates there. The Polisario Front seeks the independence of the territory.
Further north, along the coast of Western Sahara, the official MAP news agency reported on Thursday that the Moroccan navy rescued 30 migrants south of Laayoune. Navy ships are still looking for 59 other people in the nearby waters hundreds of miles from Dakhla, including 14 women and 4 children.
In addition, the Spanish Maritime Rescue Agency said on Friday that it had rescued 63 people near the Canary Islands.
Deaths of immigrants are common in the Atlantic region that separates the west coast of Africa from the Canary Islands in Spain. However, in the recent shipwreck, it is clear that the number of women and children who have died is unusually high.
Shipwrecks on the West African route to the Canary Islands are often difficult to verify, and the remains of most victims will never be found.
The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that in the first six months of 2021, at least 250 migrants died on their way to the Canary Islands, while the walking border report said there were more victims on the same route during the same period , Nearly 2,000.
According to data from the International Organization for Migration, in the first half of 2021, the number of arrivals increased by 156% compared with the same period last year.
The number of undocumented immigrants and refugees arriving in the Canary Islands of Spain in the Atlantic Ocean is More than eight times higher Compared with 2019, the impact of COVID-19 on tourism and other industries in northern and sub-Saharan Africa has prompted more people to embark on a dangerous journey.
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