Three migrants were arrested after arriving in the Spanish Canary Islands, accused of being complicit in the deaths of 25 migrants who were allegedly thrown overboard from a boat and drowned.
The three arrested arrived on the island as migrants and were among the 48 people who survived the boat journey from Mauritania, which saw an estimated 25 people die as witnesses claim that the dead migrants were thrown overboard.
The three migrants arrested by Spanish authorities on the Canary Islands are believed to have been the leaders on board the board but it is not clear whether or not the three are suspected of being people traffickers themselves.
“Within a few days, the water supplies ran out and they only had cookies to eat, which would have led some of the people hospitalized (on the island) to drink salt water to quench their thirst,” Spanish police said, newspaper Le Parisien reports.
“The harsh conditions imposed by the captains during the crossing, who apparently tied up and beat a man, and the intrinsic conditions of the crossing may have led to the deaths of more than 25 people,” the police added.
According to the newspaper, just over 5,500 migrants have arrived on the Spanish Canary Islands between January 1st and March 15th of this year, a number nearly twice as high as the same period in 2021.
The Canary Island route has become the most popular route for illegal migration to Spain and is also the most dangerous for the migrants undertaking the journey across the Atlantic ocean from Africa.
The popularity of the route led to large numbers of deaths last year, with one NGO estimating that Spanish migrant routes as a whole saw a doubling of deaths, as the majority took place on the Canary island route.
For female migrants, the route is seen as even more treacherous as an estimated one in ten women who attempted to reach the Canary islands in 2021 died, compared to just five per cent of men who undertook the voyage.
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