A tragic incident unfolded on Sunday, November 3, when five dead bodies were found floating in the Spanish island of Lanzarote.
As per Reuters, this comes when the inflatable boat they were travelling in punctured around 90 km (56 miles).
Sources revealed that two inflatable boats were en route to the archipelago, with one boat having a deflated float.
The aircraft launched two liferafts and managed to save 17 people from one ship and 80 from the other.
State agency EFE said that so far rescue teams had rescued over 1,500 individuals in a weekend.
It also revealed that at least 48 migrants died trying to reach the Canary Islands in a boat that departed Mauritania three weeks ago.
The source further elaborated, “Ten migrants from the same craft were rescued near the island of El Hierro on Saturday.”
The Atlantic route to the Canary Islands has seen the fastest increase in irregular migration in recent years.
Although, numbers are still lower than the central Mediterranean route to Italy.
Moreover, 32,878 migrants have taken the route in ships from West Africa to the Canary Islands between January and Oct. 15.
