Maleno later explained by phone that the victims were among 62 people who boarded a boat last week from the Western Sahara region administered by Morocco. She said 16 of the dead had been recovered and were in Dakhla, a port city in the Western Sahara where the voyage began, awaiting formal identification. The Canary Islands, in the Atlantic off northwestern Africa, are one of the most dangerous migration destinations in the world. All of last year, 850 migrants died on the Canary route, the highest number of victims since the IOM began collecting data in 2014. Migration experts think part of the increase in travel to the Canary Islands has come as human traffickers revived that route after other crossings, notably that between Italy and Libya, became impassible.

Source: bd News24 October 01, 2021 21:33 UTC