Missing off the Canary Islands: Senegalese migrant boat carrying 200 people

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Spanish rescuers are looking for a boat that vanished more than a week ago and was transporting at least 200 African migrants in the waters off the Canary Islands.

According to the humanitarian organisation Walking Borders, the fishing vessel left from Kafountine, a coastal settlement in southern Senegal that is some 1,700 kilometres (1,057 miles) from Tenerife.

According to the group, there are a lot of kids on board, reported Spain's Efe news agency.

It is also reported that two other boats carrying dozens more persons are missing.

On June 27, a boat bound for the Canary Islands left Kafountine with roughly 200 people on board.

A plane had joined the search, according to the Spanish maritime rescue service, Efe.

The other two vessels are largely unknown. According to Helena Maleno of Walking Borders, who was reported by the news agency Reuters, there are around 65 individuals on board one boat and up to 60 on the other, bringing the total number of persons missing across the three boats to almost 300.

The news comes just after a crowded trawler capsized off the coast of Greece, causing one of Europe's deadliest Mediterranean migrant shipwrecks.

The UN estimated that up to 500 people were still missing, although at least 78 drowning deaths have been confirmed.

 

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