Dinghy with dozens of migrants on board sinks off Spain’s Canary Islands

Migration advocacy groups have criticised Spain and Morocco for not intervening soon enough to rescue a small boat headed for Spain's Canary Islands that sank Wednesday. At least 30 migrants are feared drowned.

Migrants rescued from a capcised dinghy on the way to Spain's Canary Islands wait to disembark from a Spanish coast guard vessel, in the port of Arguineguin, on the island of Gran Canaria, 22 June 2023. © Borja Suarez/Reuters

Spain's maritime rescue service confirmed the deaths of a child and a man, and said a Moroccan patrol boat had rescued 24 people.

Walking Borders and Alarm Phone, two migration-focused organisations, said at least 30 people people had drowned, adding there were 60 people on board the dinghy when it capsized.

Neither Spanish nor Moroccan authorities would confirm how many people had been on board the vessel, or how many might be missing.

The dinghy sank in waters off the coast of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony currently administered by Morocco but whose sovereignty is disputed. The United Nations lists it as a non-self-governing territory.

Failure to assist

Spanish rescuers received a call from the boat Tuesday evening, and Spanish state media reported that a Spanish rescue service ship had been only 46 kilometres – about an hour's sail – away from the dinghy.

But the ship did not help the dinghy because the operation had been taken over by Morocco, which dispatched a patrol boat that only arrived on Wednesday morning.

Morocco has not made any official communication about what happened.

The advocacy groups accused Spain of failing to meet its duty of care, because the dinghy was within the country's search-and-rescue region under international law.

"Spain has pulled a Greece," Walking Borders' Helena Maleno Garzon wrote in a tweet, in reference to the shipwreck off Greece's coast in which at least 82 people drowned, and where the Greek coast guard is being accused of not coming to their aid.

The Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa have become the main destination for migrants trying to reach Spain.

Angel Victor Torres, the leader of the region, regretted the deaths, and said it was "necessary and urgent for the EU to have a migration and asylum pact that offers coordinated and united responses to the migration phenomenon".

(with newswires)