More than 1,000 die in four months trying to reach Canaries
More than 1,000 Africans have died over the past four months while trying to sail in small boats from Mauritania to Spain’s Canary Islands, a Mauritanian aid official said today.
Ahmed Ould Haya, head of Mauritania’s branch of the International Committee of the Red Crescent, spoke a day after reporting the death of at least 45 would-be immigrants in two accidents on Saturday and yesterday morning.
He told Spanish radio station Cadena Ser that 40% of the boats that leave Mauritania for the Canary Islands, a trip of at least 600 miles over the Atlantic, sink or capsize along the way.
Since November 10, between 1,200 and 1,300 people have died trying to reach the Spanish islands from Mauritania, Ould Haya said.
He said the destitute Africans who attempt the journey are desperate to reach Europe in search of a better life. “For them is it like a game of Russian roulette: either I make it or I die.”
