African migrants die on route to Spain's Canary Islands

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2008

MADRID (AFP) — Fourteen African migrants died, mostly of hypothermia, trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands by boat after they became lost at sea several times, local officials said Wednesday.

The wooden fishing boat carrying 46 passengers and the bodies of 13 others was spotted by a police patrol boat in the early hours of Wednesday which escorted it to the port of Arguineguin on the island of Gran Canaria, a spokesman for the regional government said.

Later, the body of an African man was found not far from the area where the ship was first spotted and "everything indicates" that the deceased has been on the vessel, he told AFP.

"We believe they had a very difficult crossing, they may have been at sea for eight to 12 days and they got lost several times...