Three stowaways were found sitting on the top of a tanker’s rudder when the vessel arrived in Spain’s Canary Islands on Monday.
Maritime Executive reports that the stowaways were taken to a local hospital, while local migrant services warned that the incident was not the first of its type involving migrants who had embarked on perilous journeys to escape poor conditions in their home countries. The rescued migrants are believed to be Nigerians.
Spain’s maritime rescue service, Salvamento Maritimo, reported that the migrants were discovered aboard the tanker that had arrived at Las Palmas, the capital of Gran Canaria, one of Spain's Canary Islands off northwestern Africa. The 51 000-dwt, Malta-registered, Alithini II, was on an approximately 2 700-nautical-mile trip that started in Lagos, Nigeria on November 17. The tanker had been at sea for 11 days.
Crew aboard Salvamento Maritimo’s patrol vessel found the migrants while they were conducting a routine search in the region. The crew spotted the migrants sitting on the top edge of the rudder, less than two feet (60 centimetres) above the water.
According to local media reports, the stowaways were given emergency medical attention on the pier where they were treated for dehydration and hypothermia before being transported to local hospitals.
European migrant-focused organisations have highlighted that the migrant crisis is ongoing as thousands of people continue to flee poor living conditions in northern and western Africa. Most migrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean to enter Europe, while others try to cross the Atlantic Ocean from western Africa to the Canary Islands.
A migration adviser to the government of the Canary Islands, Txema Santana, retweeted a photograph that was released by the authorities. “The survival odyssey is far beyond fiction. It is not the first and it will not be the last. Stowaways do not always have the same luck,” Santana tweeted.
Santana told Associated Press that in most cases the migrants were sent back at the cost of the shipping company.
Spain’s Interior Ministry recently reported that almost 12 000 people had reached the islands in 2022, mostly in small boats.
