The sinking of a canoe with 84 people on board in El Hierro can become the the biggest tragedy of immigration what happened in the Canary Islands in 30 years of boat arrivals. This could be bigger than what happened on February 15 in Los Cocoteros, Lanzarote, where 25 people died.
According to initial reports, Maritime Rescue has recovered already nine corpses and search for 48 missing people. Only 27 of the occupants of a canoe that capsized while being rescued seven kilometers from the coast survived.
25 people drowned in Los Cocoteros
In recent years, social organizations and the United Nations Organization for Migration (IOM) have reported shipwrecks. of cayucos in the Atlantic with dozens of deaths and no survivors. Currently, the biggest tragedy in the Canary Islands remains that of Los Cocoteros.
In Guatiza, in Lanzarote. On February 15, when a boat sank a few meters from the coast and 25 of its 31 occupants drowned. Fifteen years later, it is still the one with the most deaths in the Canary Islands.
It’s been 25 years since the first shipwreck with fatalities in the Canary Islands
The first shipwreck that shook consciences in the Canary Islands took place in 1999, in Morro Jable, Fuerteventura. In this case, nine young people from Guelmin, Morocco, lost their lives, They paid 70,000 pesetas each to get on a six-meter boat which sank 300 meters from the coast.
This summer, apart from the fact that it has been 25 years since the first shipwreck with deaths in the Canary Islands, it has also been 30 years that have passed since the arrival of the first boat to the islands. It was August 28, 1994, when two young Sahrawis crossed by sea the 96 kilometers that separate Fuerteventura from Africa.
Minister Torres speaks of “humanitarian drama”
Ángel Víctor Torres, Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory. The government member stressed that what happened in El Hierro shows that immigration It is “a humanitarian drama”.
“These people ride on a boat and a canoe to try to have a chance in his life. Unfortunately, many lose them,” Torres said before a meeting of the Canary Islands PSOE.
In this sense, he believes that what happened must raise awareness among those who want to put “walls in the sea”, and “those who try to separate people based on the color of their skin.” “Just as we Canarians, in the middle of the last century, had to leave our land to seek prosperity in America, now other Africans are doing the same and seeking the same thing in Europe,” he concludes.
