Three migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were found on Monday on the rudder blade of an oil tanker at the entrance to the port of Las Palmas, in Gran Canaria, an island in the Spanish Canary archipelago. The Spanish Coast Guard said the migrants, now hospitalized with mild symptoms of dehydration, had been traveling for eleven days in the cramped space under the ship’s stern and less than a meter from the water.
According to the Coast Guard, the migrants were found on the afternoon of Monday 28 November immediately after the arrival in port of the tanker Althini II, flying the Maltese flag. The vessel departed on November 17 from the port of Lagos, Nigeria, and arrived in Las Palmas after a voyage of 2,700 nautical miles, approximately 5,000 kilometres.
The three migrants, whose ages and origins have not yet been communicated, would have made the journey without food or water and their survival would have been favored by good sea conditions, which made the crossing possible in such a small and exposed space to waves and bad weather. As soon as they arrived, they were treated by local doctors and taken to hospital.
Salvamar Nunki has recently recovered three localized polizones in the rudder blade of the Althini II hole, found in entrediques from the port of Las Palmas and the proceeding of Nigeria. They have been transferred to the port and attended by sanitary services. pic.twitter.com/1Ei1FieAV3
— SALVATORE MARÍTIMO (@salvamentogob) November 28, 2022
It is not an unprecedented case: two similar crossings, always on the rudder blades of oil tankers, had already occurred in 2020. Among the survivors there was a 14-year-old Nigerian boy, who had traveled from Lagos to Gran Canaria and had told then his experience at Spanish newspaper El Paisin December 2020.
The number of migrants attempting the crossing from the coasts of West Africa to the Canary Islands has grown rapidly in recent years. The journey is very dangerous: according to the UN World Organization for Migration, 1,532 migrants died on this route in 2021.
