Spain’s coastguard announced on Monday that it successfully rescued 86 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa who were aboard a boat off the Canary Islands. The vessel had been initially sighted earlier in the day by a rescue plane.
Initially, rescuers from Salvamento Maritimo had estimated that the boat could have been carrying around 200 migrants on board.
However, they later clarified that the estimate provided by the plane’s crew was incorrect, emphasizing the challenge of accurately determining the number of people on board from an aerial perspective.
The coastguard reported that among the individuals rescued, there were 80 men and six women. They would be transported to the Arguineguin port on Gran Canaria, they were expected to arrive around 1900 GMT.
The coastguard spotted the boat approximately 71 nautical miles south of Gran Canaria. They said that it was situated in an area where the search plane was actively seeking a vessel that had departed from Senegal two weeks prior.