MADRID: A boat carrying migrants capsized off Spain’s Canary Islands overnight, killing at least nine and leaving 48 missing, the national maritime rescue service said on Saturday.
Eighty-four people were on board and 27 were saved after rescuers responded to a distress call received shortly after midnight from off El Hierro, one of the islands in the Atlantic archipelago, a statement said.
This follows the death of 39 migrants in early September when their boat sank off Senegal while attempting a similar crossing to the Canaries, from where migrants hope to reach mainland Europe.
Thousands of migrants have died in recent years setting off into the Atlantic to reach Europe onboard overcrowded and often dilapidated boats.
The latest tragedy “again underlines the dangerousness of the Atlantic route,” Canaries regional president Fernando Clavijo wrote on X.
“We need Spain and the EU to act decisively in the face of a structural humanitarian tragedy” as lives are lost “meters from Europe’s southern border,” he added.
In late August, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited Mauritania and The Gambia to sign cooperation agreements to crack down on people smugglers while expanding pathways for legal immigration.
As of August 15, 22,304 migrants had reached the Canaries since the start of the year, up from 9,864 in the same period the previous year.
Almost 40,000 migrants entered the Canaries in 2023, a record on course to be broken this year as easier navigation conditions from September tend to lead to a spike in crossing attempts.
The Atlantic route is particularly deadly, with many of the crowded and poorly equipped boats unable to cope with the strong ocean currents. Some boats depart African beaches as far as 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the Canaries.
The International Organization for Migration, a UN agency, estimates that 4,857 people have died on this route since 2014.
Many aid organizations say that is a massive undercount, with Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish NGO that aids migrants, saying 18,680 have died trying to reach Europe.
9 dead, 48 missing in migrant boat shipwreck off Spanish island
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9 dead, 48 missing in migrant boat shipwreck off Spanish island
- Eighty-four people were on board and 27 were saved after rescuers responded to a distress call received shortly after midnight from off El Hierro
- This follows the death of 39 migrants in early September when their boat sank off Senegal
Australia hits Afghan Taliban officials with sanctions, travel bans
- The Taliban has said it respects women’s rights, in line with its interpretation of Islamic law and local custom
- The measures were part of a new Australian government framework that enabled it to “directly impose its own sanctions and travel bans to increase pressure on the Taliban, targeting the oppression of the Afghan people,” Wong said
SYDNEY: Australia on Saturday imposed financial sanctions and travel bans on four officials in Afghanistan’s Taliban government over what it said was a deteriorating human rights situation in the country, especially for women and girls.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the officials were involved “in the oppression of women and girls and in undermining good governance or the rule of law” in the Taliban-run country.
Australia was one of several nations which in August 2021 pulled troops out of Afghanistan, after being part of a NATO-led international force that trained Afghan security forces and fought the Taliban for two decades after Western-backed forces ousted the Islamist militants from power.
The Taliban, since regaining power in Afghanistan, has been criticized for deeply restricting the rights and freedoms of women and girls through bans on education and work.
The Taliban has said it respects women’s rights, in line with its interpretation of Islamic law and local custom.
Wong said in a statement the sanctions targeted three Taliban ministers and the group’s chief justice, accusing them of restricting access for girls and women “to education, employment, freedom of movement and the ability to participate in public life.”
The measures were part of a new Australian government framework that enabled it to “directly impose its own sanctions and travel bans to increase pressure on the Taliban, targeting the oppression of the Afghan people,” Wong said.
Australia took in thousands of evacuees, mostly women and children, from Afghanistan after the Taliban retook power in the war-shattered South Asian country, where much of the population now relies on humanitarian aid to survive.
