By Biran Gaye
A boat that departed from Zodiac in Morocco capsized off Moroccan sea on Saturday, 28 August, with 59 people, including 14 women and 3 children reported dead.
Refugees In Libya say the pirogue “overturned and sank with 61 people, only 2 women were rescued by a fishing boat”.
The boat, which carried sub-Sahara Africans, was headed to El Hierro, Spain.
“The boat capsized when most of the migrants stood up waiting to be rescued,” the organization reports.
The boat sank near El Aaiún in the Sahara, according to information gathered by Caminando Fronteras from relatives of the only 2 survivors.
Two (2) women were found adrift by fishermen on the remains of the inflatable boat in which they had set off for Lanzarote from Tan-Tan (Morocco), says activist Helena Maleno, founder of the Spanish NGO, on her social media account X.
According to the accounts of the survivors’ families, the Moroccan authorities took both women to the hospital in El Aaiún.
The Libyan-based organization said Caminando Fronteras had received an alert on Sunday about the departure of the Zodiac towards the Canary Islands.
Last week alone, 1,103 people were rescued by the Maritime Rescue Service from 20 inflatable boats and small boats heading to Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the two islands closest to the south of Morocco and Western Sahara, according to a count by the Red Cross.
In both cases, the most frequent departure points cited by their occupants were Tan-Tan and El Aaiún.
